


sunrise

by crush_zombie



Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bottom Nick, Established Relationship, Hardcore fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26501152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crush_zombie/pseuds/crush_zombie
Summary: After a month of travel and struggle, landing in a government "shelter" for carriers starts to seem like a good idea. The world, they discover, has kept its chaos intact.
Relationships: Ellis/Nick (Left 4 Dead)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So now that 2009 is suddenly 10+ years ago I have to keep an eye out for anachronisms, lol.
> 
> Also: I'd thought this would be readable as a stand alone thing, but there are a lot of references to the Ellis/Nick fic I wrote in 2011: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100839/chapters/60807871  
>  _I'm pretty sure this is a sequel._

  
Nick could hear Ellis' voice giving the occasional "no" among many a "yes" and the odd humming in indecision. The gambler sat as quietly and calmly as he could in a small waiting room that contained nothing but empty chairs and armed guards. The plastic and metal of the small chair creaked as Nick straightened up and stared towards the door, somewhat ajar in the dark of the low evening.  
  
Men with rifles and wearing bulletproof vests stood by every entrance and exit. Everyone they saw so far were wearing protective suits covering every visible inch with plastic and carbon. Nick could hear something deeper into the building; speech and movement, but could not be distracted from listening to Ellis' voice, to try to discern his tone.  
"Oh... well, okay I guess," he finally heard him say. There was a polite "Thank you very much," as Ellis was led out of the room by an armed guard with another following. He caught eyes with Nick who opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the other man giving a thumbs up as he was led away. The idea of Ellis being unarmed sent a hot prickling into Nick's chest, and being separated from him, Coach and Rochelle was even worse.  
  
When they first arrived, after hours of walking, talking and convincing, they were led through chainlink fences past a million signs warning of danger, into what the four of them immediately recognized as a repurposed penitentiary, certainly, a place of no celebrated deeds. After the four were subsequently stripped of all weaponry, Rochelle was led away from the other three, separated by obvious gender, and her glance back at the three of them was not one of confidence. Being convinced that the lack of “prisoners” was all that had changed from the summer of 2009 to now, Nick's chest was sour with panic. As they were brought through an open court yard the sound of several unintelligible conversations was unmistakable and almost bizarre to hear-- suddenly, the sound of a rifle shot echoed over the grounds and no-one but the three of them seemed to care or even notice. If Nick did not know first-hand, he definitely knew first-adjacent; this was a place where people died.  
  
In the waiting room, Nick was called in to the next and followed. He sat down in a booth, separated from someone in a hazmat suit sitting behind a pane of plexiglass and prepared his most scalding glare, just to let them know how serious he took being held here, being separated, and being robbed of his autonomy, and how much he disapproved. The person on the other side started writing on a mess of stapled paper, barely even giving the gambler a glance.  
  
After what felt like forever, the person on the other side raised their head and looked Nick in the eyes. “You came here with the other two.”  
  
“Ellis, yeah. And Coach.”  
  
Leaning back down to write again, the staff member marveled, somewhat incredulously, “...So you don't know his name either.”  
  
“Whatever it is, I doubt it's better than 'Coach'.”  
  
More writing. Nick kept thinking about Rochelle and wondered if she'd be okay-- he had this fruitless urge to offer her some kind of advice, anything, to try to help her if she was going to be alone. _Rochelle's tough,_ thought Nick to himself, _I'm not just making that up for comfort_.  
  
“Your name?” The person on the other side of the panel asked with little patience. Nick continued to frown.  
  
“Nick.”  
  
“Nick...” They waited for a last name, staring at him.  
  
“That's good enough, isn't it,” the gambler snarled. The less they knew, the better. He had a distinct vision of being kept in the penitentiary long after the zombie apocalypse scaled down-- he did come there with an automatic rifle in his hands, and considered this “rescuing” punitive at best.  
  
“In order for you to stay here and be under our protection, we require a full disclosure of personal information,” grumbled the staff member, pen held over the paper as they waited for his co-operation, “If you don't like it, you can leave. But since there's so many monsters out there... I doubt you'll make it by yourself.”  
  
“I can,” Nick assured them.  
  
“There's a lot of 'em out there. When our boys posted up top see them, they shoot. They shoot the infected. Do you get what I'm saying?”  
  
Nick gave the slightest nod imaginable, making a nonchalant expression like he wasn't surprised and he wasn't fighting a blaze of anger in his chest that was clutching his bones. Eventually he found the patience to give up and give them what they asked for-- he stared at the paper as his information was written on it and thought about what it would do to his life. Too late, too late.  
  
Like Ellis, Nick was led out of the room, around a bend, down a hall. Someone was waiting in front of an entrance to a shower room who instructed him to shed absolutely everything, shower and then wear whatever was in their hands-- Nick scoffed, “Are you gonna watch, or what?” He quipped at the guards, who said nothing in return as he took off his once-white coat and tried to hand it to the tertiary staff-- they immediately backed up, “No-no-no. There's a bag inside, put it all in there.”  
  
A grumble, “Whatever.”  
  
Looking back at the door every ten seconds, Nick entered the shower area; completely open, with a single window next to the ceiling, barred with iron. He tried to swallow down an immediate feeling of dread and panic as he reminded himself why he was there, folded his dirty clothes and put them neatly in what was definitely a garbage bag on a nearby bench, next to some travel-sized soap and such, and then had a shower. At one point he noticed that his hands were more tan than the rest of his arms and stared for a second, before he caught in the corner of his eye the staff person from outside the door quickly coming in to lay down the change of clothes in hand on the bench and quickly retreat. Nick barked a “Hey!” and was ignored.  
  
The clothes were old, ugly and didn't quite fit; the pants were a little too baggy, and the long-sleeved shirt and underwear were a little too small. Although not deeply uncomfortable, it only worsened Nick's mood. He had told himself he wouldn't wear somebody else's clothes again.  
  
The guards led him away and pushed him into a cell, to Nick's surprise. There were others, from the sounds of the grumbling and shuffling around him. He glared at the guards as they actually, visibly locked the cell door.  
  
“What the--?! You can't lock me in here, god damn it!” He watched them walk away, “Hey! You assholes!!” Throwing himself at the bars, he continued to watch and make quiet, helpless, angry sounds before he heard a familiar voice; “Nick? Nick!”  
  
Nick made a pointless attempt to see who was in the cell next to his, banging his head against the rungs and yipping “Ellis!” He shoved his arm through the bars to reach over the brick separating them and felt a warm, calloused hand grasp over his, as close as either of them could reach.  
  
“Jesus Christ, Ellis--” Nick swallowed, throat dry, “Thank god you're here.”  
  
“'Course I am, Nick, I ain't goin' anywhere,” laughing a little, Ellis remarked, “The guys who were with me told me we gotta stay in here until a doctor shows up for some kinda' evaluation.”  
  
“Really? Nobody said a damn thing to me.”  
  
“Well, don't worry, we ain't gonna be in here forever.”  
  
Nick felt a part of himself give out. He exhaled and moved his hand to firmly squeeze Ellis'.  
  
“Ellis...”  
  
Ellis turned his head a little, pressed against the brick wall between them.  
  
“...I'd kill for you to hold me right now.”  
  
Giving a somewhat sad smile, Ellis felt a warmth in his chest at the older man's words.  
  
“...This'll have to do for now,” he replied, “I'll hold ya forever later. Just gotta wait.”  
  
Nick sighed, huffing a breath through his nose, and let his forehead thunk against the brick in resignation.  
  
“Think they'll give us our clothes back?” Ellis asked. Nick barely opened his eyes, “I doubt it.”  
  
The voice from the other side of the wall continued with some remorse, “You're gonna miss that suit, aren'tcha.”  
  
“It was already totaled before we got here.”  
  
“Really? I thought it looked fine after you got all the gore and _refuse_ out of it.”  
  
“You're joking, right?” The corners of the gambler's mouth tugged into a sarcastic grin, “I put it through the wash, the shoulders were ruined. It's beyond repair.”  
  
“Huh...” a moment of quiet thinking, followed by a chipper “Hm.” Nick felt the hand on his pat his fingers comfortingly, “Guess we'll have to get you another one, then.”  
  
His grin immediately turned to a slightly miserable frown. There's no way he could find a perfectly good suit and a perfectly good tailor to fit it; in the apocalypse there are no guarantees of normality; there's only the apocalypse. The world is a different place, now.  
  
“I dunno, Ellis,” Nick murmured, voice low, “I think this is it.”  
  
Ellis was silent.  
  
“...Did you tell 'em we were here with Rochelle?” He asked, changing the subject.  
  
“No. I didn't wanna tell them anything.”  
  
“I'm worried about her.”  
  
“She'll be okay.”  
  
More silence. Ellis gave an anxious expression as he felt the cold, several times painted brick against his cheek. After a minute he spoke up, “Nick,” he began, “I'm gonna let go for now, okay? I gotta use the washroom. Er, the toilet in my cell, I guess.”  
  
Nick let go of his hand and withdrew his arm, holding it against his chest to try to bring warmth back into it. He sat down against the wall and stared off, crossing his arms. In the next cell he could hear Ellis pick up the toilet seat and piss.  
  
“...They let you keep your rings?” came a voice over the sound of draining urine.  
  
Nick looked down at his hands, “I didn't take them off.” The glint of gold was dull in the low light as he turned his palms, and without much thought he pulled the band from his left middle finger and stuck his arm out beyond the bars again.  
  
“...Here.”  
  
Ellis made a curious sound as he washed his hands. He hopped over to the wall and wiped his hands on the jeans he was wearing and reached out, sliding his hand up and down to find Nick's. He fitted his palm under Nick's fingers and felt something pressed into it and grabbed it exaggeratedly to keep it from escaping. As he pulled his hand back he looked into it.  
  
“Wait, _what?_ ” He chirped, “N-Nick... you ain't _proposin'_ to me, are you?!” Ellis' voice cracked.  
  
“I'm letting you borrow it,” the gambler assured him, “You kept asking me about them, so... let it be something to remind you.”  
  
Ellis threw himself at the bars with a _PASH!_ to vainly try to look at Nick, “AH _DO_ \-- y-wha? Remind me?”  
  
A tired voice replied, “Would you rather my ID?”  
  
“...The one where you have a mullet?”  
  
“Mm-hm. The only one I've got.”  
  
Getting suddenly quiet, Ellis looked at the ring in hand and cradled it like it was something breakable and excruciatingly special. As if it were a very important moment, he took it and carefully slid it onto his left ring finger. His eyes got hot and teary as he gazed at the band of gold.  
  
“I never... never thought...” Swallowing hard, Ellis sobbed, causing Nick to quickly straighten up and glare at the wall separating him and the mechanic. “Y-You're crying?”  
“Of course I am!” Ellis wailed, “It's an emotional time in my life, okay?! I'm gettin' married in _prison!_ ”  
  
“We're not getting married, Ellis! Jesus Christ! It's not even legal!” Nick shouted, very serious about it.  
  
“ _Nick, that's it! As soon as we get out of here we're moving to Connecticut!_ ”  
  
“You didn't fucking _plan_ this, did you?! I told you I'm never getting married again!!”  
  
An even more tired voice sighed from beyond Ellis' cell, “...They're gonna regret lettin' you two have cells next to each other.”  
  
Nick's eyes widened in surprise as Ellis whipped back to yell at the next room, “Don't you dare _shame_ us, Coach-- all's beautiful in the eyes of God and the federal law!”  
  
“Lissen, y'all can do whatever the hell you want. I think Rick Perry's got more on his hands to worry about than you two exchangin' vows in some abandoned prison cells.”  
  
Nick got up and promptly walked as far away from Ellis' wall as he could, covering his burning face with his hands.  
  
“Guess this means we gotta make a make a _coterie,_ huh,” Ellis remarked, sounding a little desperate.  
  
“Coach-- Coach,” Nick called as he approached the bars of his cell again, “C... Could you tell me... when you're there, listening to me saying shit to Ellis?”  
  
“Poor, poor Nicholas...” came his voice, “I'mma say nothin', like every other time I hear you guys makin' woo-hoo and sayin' your sweet nothings. Now, just let me get some sleep for once.”  
  
Nick nodded, shaken, and walked over to collapse on the plastic-covered mattress with a _SLAP._ He felt the life drain from him, and he stayed there for the rest of the night, listening to Ellis humming to himself. Hours later, in what Nick assumed was the middle of the night, he heard the younger man quietly call for him.  
  
“...Nick? Nick, you still awake?”  
  
The gambler's eyes opened.  
  
“I'm awake.”  
  
Rolling off his bed and slowly standing up to go to the corner of the cell again, Ellis rested his head against the bars.  
  
“Answerin' all them questions made me think... I--” He tried to be quiet-ish, “...You been to the Peach State, have ah ever been to where you're from?” A moment, then, “I've traveled a lot, been all over America.”  
  
“You haven't been there.”  
  
“Y'think? What's it like?”  
  
There was a long stretch of silence. Nick stared up at the ceiling, thinking, before he spoke again; “Where I come from...” he began, taking his time, “The sky is filled with thunder every summer.”  
Ellis listened as the gambler continued, “It pours, and it's hot as hell.”  
  
With a deliberate squint, Ellis tried to match up the description. Blank.  
“...Ah thought... You ain't from up in California, in the mountains, are you.”  
  
“Do I sound like I'm from California?”  
  
The mechanic's face twitched into a thoughtful scowl, “You... _kinda_ sound like you're from Jersey.”  
  
Nick gave an amused puff, “Huh,” like he hadn't heard that one before. “Well, it doesn't matter. I've spent more time away from that place than I did living there. It's not my home.”  
  
“Where is your home?” Ellis asked, leaning against the steel rungs with his arms.  
  
The other man slid his hands under the plastic-enclosed pillow, propping the back of his head, “Guess,” he commanded, closing his eyes.  
  
A moment of quiet pondering, “Is 'anywhere' home?”  
  
Nick shook his head, “Mm-mm.”  
  
“It's not like, where there's money, is it?”  
  
Nick shook his head again, “Nope.”  
  
“Jeez, I'm 'fraid I just don't know.”  
  
“C'mon, kid,” Nick ribbed, smiling, “For now, it's wherever you are.”  
  
Ellis' chest burst with warmth and his hand reached up to grasp at the button-up plaid over his heart. He was suddenly very aware of the ring on his hand and let go to stare at it-- he made a long, quiet whining noise before pressing his head against the cell bars, hissing, “Nick, you can't say that shit when there's so much standin' between us! Oh good god, I wanna kiss you so bad!”  
  
A “shhhh” came from the other side of the wall, and Ellis heard the sound of the gambler get off the bed and approach.  
  
“Well... It's not much, but... Here--” Nick held up his hand as if Ellis could see and narrated, “I'm gonna kiss my hand, you do the same.”  
  
Obeying, Ellis gently kissed his left palm and reached out-- his hand was grasped by Nick's, palm to palm. It was more like a handshake than anything intimate, but even so, Ellis couldn't help but smile, uttering “...This is romantic.”  
  
“In a way.”  
  
  
  
The next morning, Nick woke up to the sound of someone pounding the door of his cell with the side of their fist as loudly as they could-- he sprung up, terrified, while still clutching his pillow in arm before he realized what was happening and where he was.  
  
The guard at the door shouted, “You awake in there? Huh? Are you?”  
  
Nick just squinted, glaring in response. There was a second of awkward silence before the guard stepped back to unlock the cell door. “C'mon, get up,” they demanded, standing back to let Nick out.  
  
The gambler slowly turned on the bed and fit his feet into the hotel slippers they gave him in lieu of his loafers and trudged out. He looked into Ellis' cell momentarily and saw it was empty before being pushed off to somewhere else.  
  
In a doctor's office in the penitentiary somewhere, Nick sat on an examination bed, shirtless, and stared as the doctor, dressed in PVC and rubber, looked at a screen and noisily exhaled into a plastic face shield. Approaching Nick, they told him to sit up and slowly breathe in while they listened to his heart. Slowly breathe out, turn, from his back, then. In the quiet, Nick stared off, thinking of how his life, and the lives of the other three he now would die for, had become something of scientific sport-- lesions, scratches and bites, their healing as curiosity. Something separated them from everyone Nick hated; a justified wall, sprung from whatever happened in his brain, spine or blood. He opened his mouth wide and felt the inside of his cheek swabbed-- as the doctor walked away with his spit Nick wondered if they could find Ellis in it.  
  
“As expected, you are a carrier,” the doctor turned to him, “But otherwise, you are perfectly healthy.”  
  
“That's a surprise,” Nick admitted.  
  
Soon, Nick was led to a particular set of double-doors that had to be unlocked to let him through. The guard locked the door again and Nick could hear, close by, people talking.  
  
“Breakfast is at 10,” came the voice behind him as he was nudged forward, “Dinner's at 6, lunch at 9, lights out at 10.” Just hearing that made Nick's back crawl with dread. Although-- his stomach gave a renewed smoulder at the idea of “breakfast at 10”; timed meals? _Reliable_ meals? Incredible.  
  
They came to what seemed to be a common area and the guard went off on their own business, leaving Nick to suddenly be intensely aware of the presence of human beings, other than the most recognizable, as a group of some seven or more sat around, on old couches, watching a mostly-functioning TV, together, apart, talking to each other. His gaze darted to a man who quickly stood up and turned to him and it took Nick a moment to realize that this guy, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans like the most stereotypical hillbilly, was actually Ellis without a hat. He felt his skin tingle a little, and a sharp, almost dancing feeling in his chest as he watched Ellis run like he was in a marathon, around the couch and straight at him, as everyone in the room watched. It seemed like something came over Ellis, and he slid to a stop a few feet before Nick, suddenly taking a casual appearance.  
  
He coughed into his fist and leaned against the nearest wall, “So, uh... What'd the doctor say?”  
  
Nick gave a hesitant grimace, “Nothing. Said I was healthy.”  
  
“Same, same.”  
  
First glancing at the roomfull of eyes on them, Nick looked at Ellis and quietly asked, “What's going on?”  
  
“Oh nothin',” Ellis gave a cool sigh, “Jus' employin' a herculean amount of self-restraint so I don't embarrass you in public.”  
  
“Thanks,” the gambler smiled, sounding almost sarcastic. “Where's Coach?”  
  
Ellis pointed to a couch near the slightly-too-loud TV where Coach was snoring intermittently and Nick tried to blink away his surprise, “He's sleeping _again?_ ”  
  
“I think he's makin' up for all the shitty sleep he's had in the past month,” the mechanic speculated.  
  
“If that's the case, he's gonna be in a coma,” Nick grumbled before noticing something; “Rochelle isn't here.”  
  
The younger man just shook his head, “I figured... you're here, so she must be comin'.”  
  
There was some quiet, and Nick decided to comment; “Ellis, I'm not gonna lie,” a smile, “plaid doesn't do you any favors.”  
  
“Well, you'd look sexy in a paper bag, Nick,” muttered Ellis as he gave Nick an almost serious stare-- Nick blinked away and shook his head, replying, “Alright... alright,” and making to walk over to the couch where Coach was in situ. He gave their leader a look over before leaning against the arm-rest and watching the room for a moment.  
  
More than half a dozen people sat around in the nearly-wide room, most of them staring at the television as it aired reruns of some kind of LA-based drama from the early 90's-- no news, Nick figured, on account of everyone having been in this thing wanting to be somewhere else and in some other time. Mostly women, he thought, of varying ages and walks-- something instantaneously switched track in the gambler's brain and he immediately took assuming stock of whether or not any of these people could be goaded into spending money, whether they _had_ money, and he had to stop himself. Not only was everyone partaking in the same wardrobe of worn out, mismatching, too-big-too-small clothes, money was worthless and he could no longer go about convincing women there was something to be had by letting him stay with them or do them favors in a washroom somewhere-- the thought of making Ellis disappointed or hurt, as he punished himself for entertaining the notion, made him nearly nauseous. Again, he was surprised by the deepness of his attachment to the unfunny, people-pleasing hick that made him question every deep feeling he's had as far back as he cared to remember-- people claimed love was this wonderful thing, but the ache that Nick felt in his chest sometimes felt like it was crushing him alive, or like his heart was being pulled out by its membranes.  
  
He noticed a group of three women sitting around a small table staring back at him, one of which had a cast on her arm and an old golden retriever in the shade under the counter. She gave a small, non-committal wave and the three of them giggled and continued to talk to each other. Nick gave a thoughtful squint before turning to look to his side-- Ellis was gazing at him as he stood close nearby, causing him to jump a little.  
  
“Y'know, Nick,” came his soft voice, “They got toilets here. And...” he whispered, “...they got toilet paper.”  
  
Nick's brows shot up, “Wh... What?”  
  
“Just tryin' to make you excited,” Ellis lopsidedly grinned.  
  
“I need excitement,” Nick admitted, “'Cuz I don't wanna be here. Toilet paper does sound nice, though.”  
  
“Knew you'd like it.”  
  
A voice called from the table-- one of the three ladies raised her hand, “You two. C'mere.” Of course, Ellis obeyed and hopped over. Nick took his time.  
  
When he was close to the table he heard Ellis introduce himself, “I'm Ellis. There's Coach, over on the couch, and this is--” he swung his head back and once again to watch Nick slowly approach before he continued, smiling, “This is Nick.”  
  
“Nicholas,” said the youngest one, a girl with long, dark-brown hair and her arm in a sling, “That's his name,” she pointed at the large dog lying on its side amidst an array of feet in slippers. Ellis and Nick lowered slightly to look.  
  
“You get him for Christmas?” Nick flatly asked as they both straightened up. The young lady answered, looking with her enormous, brown eyes, “Yes. Well, our neighbours did. He's a neighbour's dog.”  
  
“They let you have a dog here?” Ellis asked, surprised.  
  
“They think dogs can't get the Green Flu. He's been tested.”  
  
“Huh. Well, it's cool you got a friend with you.”  
  
Another lady of the three leaned forward, smiling. She was short and about Nick's age, with bleach-blonde hair in a bun and what Nick recognized as a burn scar on her left cheek. “I was just making a bet with these two,” she pointed with her thumbs, in case they didn't know who she was talking about, “Are you _available?_ ” She asked, maybe in general, but she looked particularly at Ellis, who looked almost surprised.  
  
He quickly raised his left hand, showing off the gold ring on his ring finger, “I'm afraid I'm taken.” Nick promptly swatted his hand down and told the ladies, “His fiancee died and he's in mourning.”  
  
Ellis then added, “Oh yeah, I'm very sad.”  
  
“What about you?” The blonde lady asked, directing the table's attention at Nick. Suave, charming Nick came out to play-- he gave a warm smile and an amiable gaze, letting his voice drop into a low tone, “Sorry... I'm not on the market right now.”  
  
The third lady with them turned to the others and quietly cursed, “I told you! I _told_ you!” but the blonde one could not be discouraged, telling her, “That doesn't mean it's impossible!” The youngest at the table joked, “You could persuade him,” before cordially laughing, kind of awkwardly.  
  
Suddenly it was 10, and everyone was called into a cafeteria, somewhere slightly deeper into the penitentiary. Ellis went over to the couch where Coach was and woke him up, slapping him on the face, “C'mon, Coach. Wake up.”  
  
Coach slowly came to and sat up with a long sigh. He flinched at a sudden pain in his shoulder, hissing, “Ooh, was somebody _kickin'_ me while I was asleep?”  
  
“Ain't nobody but that shitty ol' thing hurtin' you, Coach,” Ellis replied, “I wouldn't trust it.”  
  
“It ain't so bad when you get used to it,” Coach grunted as he stood up with Ellis lending a hand.  
  
“I think that couch might be makin' a battered wife outta you. Let's get you some breakfast, man.”  
  
“Shit, they got couches, _and_ breakfast?” Their eldest joked.  
  
When they got into the cafeteria Nick was pulling the cover off an old coffee machine. “What's a guy gotta do to get some _actually_ fresh coffee around here?” he shouted into the kitchen.  
  
A voice came from inside, “Sit and spin, my man!”  
  
With no changing expression, Nick dropped the cover with a _clang_ and walked away to sit down at a table as far away from other people as possible. He was soon joined by Ellis.  
  
“Nick, did you see this?” He asked, slapping a tray of food down on the table, “Sandwich! Soup! Mashed potatoes! Wait, why aren't you eatin'?”  
  
“This is my breakfast,” a mug of coffee.  
  
“C'mon, Nick! You gotta have somethin' real, we're eatin' for two, now!”  
  
Nick squinted behind his cup, “What?”  
  
The mechanic patiently broke it down, “Well, we're in a relationship, so we gotta eat enough so we don't worry each other.”  
  
“You--” _ssssip,_ “...I don't think that means what you think it means.”  
  
“S'trewth, though, so get somethin' in you-- uhh...” Ellis pondered for a second before resting his chin in hand and gazing at Nick, sighing, “Oh, _Nick_... Can I call you somethin'? Baby? Honey?”  
  
The gambler gave him a serious expression, “While we're here, call me 'Nick'.”  
  
“You're so shy, baby-honey. It's real cute, honestly.”  
  
“Listen. Coach and Ro might be cool with us, but I don't trust the people here.”  
  
“My ears are burnin',” came Coach's voice as he sat down with them, placing a tray on the cafeteria table.  
  
“Coach,” Nick cautiously began as he set his mug down, “You wouldn't tell these people about what me and Ellis do, right?” He motioned towards others in the cafeteria.  
  
“ _I_ didn't have to be told. If y'all want it to be a secret, it's up to you. Me and Ro ain't gonna say a thing,” he gently assured them before digging in.  
  
Nick's eyes flicked over to Ellis, who sat there looking almost confused. He looked to Coach, who was too busy eating to return his gaze, and then back to Nick before blinking a few times and asking, “...Nick, what d'you think these people are gonna do?” Sensing an immediate rebuttal, Ellis quickly added, “Specifically, I mean. Like... beat us up? Kill us?”  
  
“Have you never been threatened with a beating before?” Nick asked with an incredulous squint.  
  
“I was kinda thinkin' that the people here would be a little less inclined since we all been through something together, y'know? It's the end of the _world._ ”  
  
Nick jostled in his seat, putting his mug down and fighting with his chair, “Here-- lemme--” _RRT, KMP-THMP,_ “Here,” he finally got up to lean closer and slapped a brusque hand onto Ellis' slack, indifferent shoulder. With a feigned smile, Nick assured him, “Not the case.”  
  
_SHMP, RRT-RRT,_ the gambler sat down again. With the enthusiasm instantaneously drained from him, Ellis started to eat, staring only at the food in front of him. When he was done, he sat there, staring at his empty plate, deep in thought as Nick, on the other side of the table leaned back and crossed his arms, staring at Ellis' hair and wondering when it got so curly-- washing it probably gave it some body, he thought.  
  
Ellis looked back up at Nick, catching his gaze with a salty glare.  
  
His words were stern. “Nick... They haven't had the time to prove themselves to you. Give 'em a chance.”  
  
They continued to look at each other for a moment as Coach watched, amused, in the background. Nick's expression softened. He blinked towards the table, and then to the side, giving a quiet sigh of resignation and saying nothing.  
  
The cafeteria door opened and the three of them watched as Rochelle walked through, dressed in weird, plain clothes and looking around cautiously. Ellis bolted from his seat to wave to her, shouting, “Rochelle! Over here!”  
  
She slowly walked over, pulling a chair out at the table there and looking over everyone.  
  
“Oh--! Lemme get you breakfast,” Ellis quickly pushed his chair out and ran off.  
  
“Everybody okay?” She asked, earning a few nods, a “Yeah.”  
  
When he came back with a tray of food for their companion, Ellis asked, “What took you so long?”  
  
“I dunno,” shrugging, “The doctor took a year to show up in the ladies' wing and took another year staring at a screen. Said I was okay, though.”  
  
Nick got distracted by Ellis' beaming-- he then glanced at each of them, one by one, watching them talk and smile and what he was certain to be loving concern falling over them. It made for an odd feeling bubbling up into Nick's chest; with the four of them together, he felt safe and welcome. These moments-- and being in Ellis' arms-- might've been the closest to happiness he's felt in a lot of years.  
  
“What's up, Nick? You've been awfully quiet,” noted Rochelle as she finally caught his stare.  
  
“Nothing,” he replied, “Thinking.”  
  
“I, for one, am _so_ goddamn glad to be able to sleep in a place and not have to wake up every three hours to trade posts,” sighed Coach, prompting Nick to immediately think _I wouldn't hold my breath._  
  
Rochelle agreed, “I'd stay in one place for a month or two if that's what it means.”  
  
“Clean clothes, clean washrooms,” Ellis then mused, “Sounds like paradise after all we've been through.”  
  
“Sorry for listening in,” came a voice from the wayside; the lady with the blonde hair in a bun, from the three who talked to Ellis and Nick earlier, along with the other two, looked to them quietly as she asked, “How long were you guys on the run?”  
  
“'Bout a month,” Coach replied, causing the other group to look at each other, somewhat slack-jawed. The youngest of the three women looked back to them and asked, “Where did you all come from?”  
  
Ellis spoke, “Savannah, in Georgia,” and the group were speechless. There was a long moment of awkward silence, and they weren't sure how to respond-- “You _walked?_ ” asked the blonde one.  
  
“Most of the way,” confirmed the mechanic, “Walkin', then by car, then walkin', then by helicopter, then walkin', then boat... then walkin'. Then by helicopter again. And then walkin'. Y'all ain't from out east?”  
  
“We're from Houston,” the youngest pointed to herself, and to the blonde lady.  
  
“ _Houston,_ ” Ellis sounded sorry, “That must've been a feat, gettin' outta there.”  
  
“We got out in police custody,” the blonde nearly sounded proud. The look on the youngest's face said there might've been more to that.  
  
“Oh,” looking off, Ellis blinked, a little dumbfounded, “Well. Good, I guess.”  
  
“You didn't miss much,” assured their reporter. Ellis added, “All _we_ got was great hand-eye and some really buff calves.”  
  
The eldest of the three women chirped, “No thank you,” and went back to eating. The other two soon did the same after some more awkward silence.  
  
The three survivors disengaged, but Ellis watched just for a second longer. There was something he didn't seem to let go of, and Nick noticed.  
  
  
  
In the men's communal washroom, Ellis entered a stall and pulled the door closed behind him. He unbuttoned his jeans, shrugged them and his shorts to his knees and sat down, huffing a long sigh. Footsteps sounded in the washroom, then-- confident steps in hotel slippers stopped in front of his stall and he heard a knock.  
  
“Occupied~” sang the mechanic, before a hand wrenched the door open from the top after a few dramatic rattles-- Ellis squeaked as Nick quickly entered and locked the door behind him before descending on the younger man. Ellis was sure his kneecaps were going to pop off as the crushingly heavy gambler sat on his lap and thread an arm around his neck to pull him into a surprising hug.  
  
Arms reached up in return, squeezing the other man. They held each other for some long moments, ending only when Ellis mumbled into Nick's ear, “Nick... I was takin' a dump.”  
  
Nick tenderly whispered in response, “Don't shit while I'm here.”  
  
“Yer gonna have to get off me and get outta my stall, then,” Ellis warned him.  
  
Unfurling slightly, Nick brought his hands up to Ellis' face and gazed into his eyes before kissing him.  
  
He leaned back a little. “...I'm watching you, Ellis.”  
  
“You're watchin' me _poop?_ ”  
  
Nick brought his face closer, close enough for their noses to touch.  
  
“I see you, out there, pouring yourself out for everyone.”  
  
Although it was intimate, and meant to be positive, Ellis' face couldn't help but scrunch up in a repulsed frown, almost making his eyes disappear. He shook his head lightly and tried to look away.  
  
“Naw... Naw-naw-naw-naw. Don't say that, Nick,” he quietly begged. The reaction was interesting to Nick, to say the least. The gambler gently brought his face up to look at him again and pressed his thin lips against Ellis'. They kissed, once and then again.  
  
With his face next to Ellis', Nick gave him an affectionate smile and told him, “I'm proud of you,” as the mechanic squirmed, uncomfortable.  
  
Ellis whispered in response, “Nick, yer gonna make me cry.”  
  
“Crying's okay,” kissing him again, Nick continued, “I'm still gonna admire you.”  
  
“Seriously, Nick,” Ellis then grumbled as he looked up at Nick with a troubled frown, “Hearin' stuff like that... it doesn't make me feel good. 'Feel like I'm gonna turn inside-out.”  
  
Nick hung back a little, watching the younger man wilt, and thought.  
  
After a moment, Ellis spoke up, asking “Are you gonna let me take a shit?” It sounded like he was trying to change the subject, so Nick let him, nodding and getting up from Ellis' lap. The younger man's hands quickly moved to rub the imprint of Nick's butt out of his thighs as he muttered “Hurry up, I'm prarie-doggin' here,” and it was time for Nick to make a repulsed expression-- he closed the stall door behind him, saying “Don't-- Fucking gross!”  
  
He walked over to the sinks and washed his hands (for peace of mind), and when he was done he looked into the single, tiny mirror bolted onto the wall and blinked in surprise-- he wasn't sure if he looked more relaxed or more like he was heading towards a depressive breakdown, but either way, it was different. He picked at his hair, trying to encourage the his side-part with a wet hand.  
  
When Ellis came out of the stall, buttoning up his jeans, Nick stood back and watched him, observing his gentle movements, the tan up the back of his neck, his facial expression. Ellis glanced and then double-taked when he realized he was being observed.  
  
“You got somethin' to say to me?” He asked, at least slightly worried. Nick just settled on the spot, raising an attentive brow and letting his bottom lip protrude. Ellis watched as he made this goofy expression for a moment, until the gambler spoke.  
  
“...Y'know, I'm not the only one who sees the way you always bend backwards for all of us.”  
  
“Nope, nope, nope,” Ellis shook his head, “Please, _do not say anything else_.”  
  
“Why?” The older man was genuinely curious, “What happens when I give you that acknowledgement?”  
  
“I get--” turning to him, Ellis brought his fingers to his chest to tap there as he opened his mouth before he'd decided on his words-- he took a moment of looking off with a cloudy frown before continuing, “It's like--” he took a breath, “Ah feel like I'm gettin' crushed by somethin'. But it's this _sour_ -ass feeling, it's hard to explain.” He got a little quieter, then, saying “S'painful.”  
  
Nick gave a thoughtful furrow of his brows as he cocked his head, listening. He watched as Ellis quickly scratched his shoulder, worrying it almost.  
  
“...I'm only doin' what ah think is right. It's not... that...” he visibly thought on his words, “Not that--” then, turning to Nick, he gave a grumpy look, “Nick, we can stop talkin' about this, or I can pick a direction and just run.”  
  
“You're not gonna get anywhere,” Nick admonished before Ellis replied, “You wanna bet?”  
  
“Ellis, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this.”  
  
“Not before I get to the bottom of this penitentiary.”  
  
“Then I'll find you.”  
  
“I still don't have'ta talk.”  
  
Nick pointed at the bathroom stall Ellis was in earlier, “Okay, if we go into that stall there I'll suck your dick if you let me ask you painful personal questions.”  
  
The mechanic just squinted, “Nick, you just wanna suck my dick.”  
  
Nick smiled, “Maybe.”  
  
“You are one doozy of a man, I gotta admit,” Ellis sighed as he walked over to Nick, pulling him into a hug. The older man let his head rest on Ellis' shoulder and gave a long exhale, feeling his fingers in his hair. He hugged him back and felt himself relax-- a small, fond smile came to his face and he felt the mechanic cradle him slightly, gently twisting his waist back and forth.  
  
“...Man, I could stay like this forever. Ah love it when you're soft.”  
  
The older man muttered into his collar, “I can't always be soft, Ellis.”  
  
“That's fine,” Ellis chirped, looking down at him, “Ah wouldn't change you for the world, Nick.”  
  
Eyes opening, the gambler gave a light grin, “You sure about that?”  
  
Ellis made sure they made eye contact as he gazed at him, smiling warmly. He nodded and told him, “Y'know, Nick. Even if you never did come out on that back deck and offer t'give me a hickey... I'd still care about you. Then, and now.”  
  
Nick turned his face away, resting the other side of his head on Ellis' shoulder and gave an exasperated sigh.  
  
“Oh, ha! Now who's uncomfortable?” He squeezed the remaining sigh out of the gambler and kissed the side of his head. “S'gonna be hard findin' a place for us to be intimate...”  
  
“You're gonna have to gag me,” Nick grumbled.  
  
Ellis raised a brow, “ _Gag_ you? You into that?”  
  
“Not really. Gagging reminds me of a... _different_... time in my life. Not a good one,” then Nick quickly added, “Don't ask.”  
  
“Well, don't worry, it's gonna be good times from here out. Ah wouldn't think of hurtin' ya, Nick,” giving the gambler another kiss in his hair, he felt the arms around him tighten momentarily.  
  
They heard footsteps, then, and quickly separated, pushing each other away. As one of the other residents entered, looking at both of them for a moment, Nick casually walked past them and left the public washroom as Ellis watched. He left after a moment, too, with a disappointed sigh through his nose-- he was barely though the door when he saw Nick leaning against the wall across the hall, though, waiting for him. Seeing his face, tinged with concern, made Ellis pause-- for some ridiculous reason he didn't expect him to be there.  
  
Nick saw his surprise, though, and stood up to walk over to him. Without speaking, he took up Ellis' left hand and picked out his ring finger. He pinched the band of gold and looked him in the eye, giving a quiet, sincere frown as he held his hand in both his own, giving it a firm jerk against his chest.  
  
“...'Kay?” came Nick's quiet voice.  
  
Ellis suddenly became jittery, nodding quickly and reaching up to pull his hat down only to grasp nothing and get confused for a second. He heard Nick laugh, felt his hand on his head, and then saw him continue walking, back towards the common area.  
  
The only thing he could do in response was let his head drop to the side in resignation with a half-hearted smile before following him.  
  
  
  
Dinner at 6 was different from breakfast at 10-- for whatever reason the three ladies they met earlier decided to eat closer to the group this time-- the blonde lady in particular sat next to Nick, making him quietly uncomfortable as she stared at Ellis and the three of them talked almost exclusively to him after the other three had more or less given up. Rochelle rested her head on her folded arms on the table as Coach sat laid back with his eyes closed.  
  
The oldest of the three women sat back with a dumbfounded expression and distantly spoke; “So zombies are real...”  
  
“Zombies aren't real,” the blonde one corrected her.  
  
“So zombies might be real...”  
  
“They _are_ real! That's what I've been sayin' for the past... I dunno, hour! We fought 'em! We ran from 'em! They were _everywhere!_ ”  
  
“Are you _sure_ , though...?” looking back to Ellis, the blonde asked, “I'm pretty sure the guy I ran into was a junkie who was fucked up on bath salts.”  
  
Ellis gave a look of confusion as Nick's eyes squinted just a little more at her in the background, “...'Bath salts'? You mean, like-- epsom or somethin'?”  
  
“No, psychoactive bath salts,” she replied almost condescendingly.  
  
“W--... That sounds like a real easy way to drown,” he rebuked.  
  
“People don't put them in the _bath,_ boy,” crossing her arms, the blonde replied, “They're potent drugs people smoke and shoot up with. They make people go nuts and tear other folks apart.”  
  
“ _Drugs?_ ” Ellis spat before he shook his head, “Naw, you don't understand--”  
  
“You keep saying that,” the eldest of the three ladies laughed.  
  
“That's because y'all _don't understand,_ I'm talkin' about _zombies,_ ” he softly punched his other palm as he hand-talked, “The kind that _kill_ people. And the people they kill... get up and kill people. They ain't _high,_ they're _infected!_ ”  
  
“The guy who attacked me was pale as as a ghost,” came the blonde's response, “Aren't zombies supposed to be green?”  
  
Ellis made another perplexed look, “Zombies ain't _green_ , the heck d'you hear that?”  
  
“I thought they were blue,” the eldest woman confessed.  
  
“They ain't blue, either!”  
  
“You ever see somebody on bath salts? When the EMTs show up they say they're practically dead, their organs are shutting down as they _breathe,_ ” the blonde woman insisted.  
  
“If they're zombies like you say, it's not so hard to get away,” the elder lady innocently urged, “ _Just run away from them!_ ”  
  
Nick watched as Ellis gave a disappointed breath and closed his eyes for a moment before he braved the conversation again and thought about how much patience somebody who (apparently) works an auto shop would need.  
  
“How long you been here?” he finally asked.  
  
The two oldest of the ladies both told him, “A month,” and Ellis shot back a little. He was slightly astonished; “You been here since this started, then. You tellin' me... there were zombies in Houston a month ago?”  
  
The point made Rochelle, Nick and Coach (eyes now open) suddenly pay attention to what they were saying.  
  
“Except this guy wasn't trying to eat me. He was just trying to punch my entire face in.”  
  
“That's what they _do!_ ” Ellis quietly bewailed, and the oldest lady leaned back with a cloudy look of confusion before asking, “But zombies want to eat you to death, don't they?”  
  
Ellis looked back and forth between the two of them in bewilderment. The blonde lady spoke again, “Yeah, that's it. See, Ellis, zombies are a metaphor for cannibalism.”  
  
“No they _ain't,_ ” he growled.  
  
“They want your brains, right?” the older woman asked genuinely and the three other survivors got bored of listening again and looked away once more. Nick's eye got caught on the youngest of the three women, cradling her arm-cast, who hadn't said a thing, and watched her silently stare off into his chest with a concerning detachment. He then noticed Ellis looking at him.  
  
“We... We didn't see any zombies _eatin'_ other zombies, did we.”  
  
Rochelle gave a tired, quiet groan. Nick just quickly rolled his eyes and muttered, “My memory is a kaleidoscope of burning buildings, muzzle flashes and god-awful stink, Ellis.”  
  
“You know, you aren't the first people to come here and start talking about zombies,” the oldest of the three women interrupted. “How do you know for certain the 'green flu' is bringing the dead back to life?”  
  
Rochelle turned her head towards the conversation again and asked, “Wait-- you ladies never heard about that?”  
  
“Of course we heard,” said the blonde, “We heard it all. The green flu is killing people, it's turning people into monsters. It's a method of population control. It's just a cover-up for people to just go nuts, kill people, rob places. It's an act of bio-terrorism. It's a government conspiracy, it's chemicals falling from the sky. It's Russians. It's aliens. It's an act of _God._ Hypnotism. Hallucinations. I'm goin' with drugs.”  
  
Ellis pointed at his own chest, “But you got eye witnesses here!”  
  
“We did before, too,” she replied, “But that doesn't mean you guys weren't bio-terrorized in a government conspiracy while breathing in Russian chemicals from the sky disseminated by aliens and hypnotized by God. Again, I think you just got punked by someone putting bath salts in Georgia's wells.”  
  
“That don't make any sense, ma'am,” Ellis sighed, ready to give up.  
  
“'Course not,” she grinned, “You're lucky you're so cute, boy, 'cause you got air between your ears.”  
  
She laughed to herself and got up, taking her food tray as Ellis calmly replied, “Mm-hm.”  
  
As she walked away Nick glared at the back of her head until he was distracted by the eldest of the three women talking to herself, mumbling “ _Santo cielo,_ ” as she turned to Ellis. “Please, don't take what she says to heart. She's got a complicated relationship with all of this,” she quietly pleaded.  
  
Ellis just blinked, trying to think of what that meant. The youngest woman, to his side, still holding her broken arm, suddenly sharply gasped and looked down at her shin-- the old golden retriever sitting next to her gave her crossed leg a paw and, realizing what happened, she gave a relieved sigh.  
  
“You want to go out?” she asked Nicholas, “Alright.” She stood up as the other Nicholas watched, and taking the dog's leash she walked away.  
  
Rochelle unfolded and sat back up with her hands on the table, looking to the only other woman sitting there with a soft frown. “You said there was somebody else who was talking about zombies here, right?”  
  
“Oh, yes. They're not here.”  
  
“What... happened to them?” Rochelle asked a little cautiously.  
  
The older woman gave a nonchalant shrug, “They quit. They left.”  
  
A hot sensation quickly crawled up Nick's back as he tried to contain his reaction. He looked at her, “...They... _left_...”  
  
“People can leave. Did they not tell you?”  
  
Nick watched the others' reactions-- Rochelle just said “Yeah,” and no-one else said a thing.  
  
Soon enough, only the four of them were sitting in the entire cafeteria, staring off as they thought.  
  
“...People have been reporting about zombies,” Rochelle thought aloud, “But I _guess_ I shouldn't be surprised that some people wouldn't believe what was happening.”  
  
Coach finally spoke as he kept his eyes closed, “Not everybody's gonna come out of this in _enlightenment_ or somethin',” he sighed as he shifted his crossed arms, “I guarantee you, some of the zombies we killed-- once upon a time they were people who didn't think any of it was real.”  
  
The three of them gazed at their leader as they stared off in thought. A guard soon came to the entrance of the cafeteria to kick them out.  
  
  
  
Night came, and Ellis found himself following others as they retired to the makeshift shelter's sleeping quarters. On the way, he found Nick leaning against railing leading to upstairs and approached him. Before he could say anything, Nick interjected.  
  
“Do you always just let people call you stupid?”  
  
Ellis straightened up in surprise. “Huh?”  
  
Nick stepped away from the railing and put his hands in his sweatpants' pockets as he scowled at the mechanic, “Earlier, that woman said you had 'air between your ears'.”  
  
Ellis glanced to the side with a contemplating expression and then frowned, “...Did she? I dun remember.”  
  
Nick squinted at him, “ _What?_ I can't get it out of my head but you can't even remember?” and the mechanic just tilted his head with a soft smile, brows gently knit.  
  
“Ah'm flattered yer thinkin' about me and all, but I can't go and get upset every time somebody says somethin' like that. Although it's usually 'Yer so cute er handsome, if only you was more A, or more B...'” he started walking up the steps with Nick, “...A an' B usually bein' 'intelligent' an' 'concerned for yer own safety.'”  
  
Just watching him as they both climbed the stairs, Nick was engulfed in the want to grab every shitty asshole who's ever said something to Ellis and hog tie them and throw them in a wood chipper, including himself. He gave a palpably angry exhale.  
  
“Don't worry about it, Nick. I ain't very bright, but I know I ain't stupid. She'll come around. She just gotta get to know us better.”  
  
Nick just shook his head in warning as he cleared the last step up, “That's a trap, Ellis. Trust me.”  
  
“I'm pretty sure she isn't trying to gain some kinda' emotional leverage by calling me dumb,” Ellis scoffed as he watched Nick walk in front of him, going into a hallway. He heard the man reply, “That's how women get you, dude. Overconfidence.”  
  
Ellis would laugh if he didn't think Nick was actually speaking his mind. As people chatted down the hall, Ellis followed Nick and looked through some of the doors as they passed by, seeing small-ish rooms with two bunk beds on either side. Nick led him into one further ahead with a bunk on the right with something familiar on the lowest bed.  
  
“D-4, here we go,” he chimed and approached the right bunk with some surprise, remarking, “Huh, my crap.” The beat-up, dirty bag was sitting next to a collection of unfamiliar clothes, and as he sat down next to it he started looking through it.  
  
Ellis walked around, turning on the light and looking about. A barred, pitch-dark window, utilitarian tables with small toiletries. He heard Nick grumble and turned back to look at him searching the bottom of his bag.  
  
“...They took everything. Well-- except...” Thumbing the plastic container, he lifted the petroleum jelly he got from the bathroom in Johnson Bayou just enough for Ellis to see and watched the younger man give a confused look.  
  
“They let you keep the _lube?_ ” he whispered, “The hell for?”  
  
Nick grinned at him, “Guess they don't know, either.”  
  
They heard a familiar voice from outside, repeating “D-2... D-2... D-2...” and in walked Coach-- he froze when he saw Nick and Ellis next to each other and tiredly sighed from the bottom of his feet, “God... _damn_...”  
  
They watched, stationary, as he shook his head, walked over to the bunk on the other side of the room and started going through the stuff on the lower bed; a stack of clothes on top of his completely empty (and nearly totaled) bag. Nick opened his mouth, “...Sorry, Coach.”  
  
“You ain't sorry,” Coach assured him, “Ain't nothin' to be sorry _about_. Lord's got a special mission for Coach, he just don't know I ain't gonna accept it quietly.”  
  
“Well-- ah don't even know if this bunk here is mine,” Ellis admitted as he pointed, before Nick could firmly tell him, “If it's somebody else's they're gonna have to fuck off. Nobody else is sleeping over me.”  
  
Ellis looked to Nick, then back to Coach, and shrugged like it was completely out of his hands.  
“Go to bed,” Coach flatly told them.  
  
“It's 9:30.”  
  
“ _Go to bed._ ”  
  
Noting his tone, the both of them got ready and got into bed.  
  
Ellis got comfortable and told them, “Good night, y'all,” and Nick and Coach answered in unison; “Good night.”  
  
It took a while for Nick to even begin feeling tired. He just stared at the metal slats of the bottom of the bunk above him and listened for every sound, every creak and mumble. Ellis turned over a few times and he just watched, feeling the vibrations through the steel. For a moment he wondered if he could really sleep that deeply at all with no locked doors and the light coming in from the hallway; when he lay on his left it shone straight in his eyes, so he turned to his right.  
  
He had a vision of someone in riot gear coming in to shoot them all in their sleep, and tried to chase the thought away by reminding himself that others had been there longer than them-- which didn't prove anything, so, his heart pounded with anxiety. He tried to think of something to occupy his mind-- about a week ago, when they had decided on coming here to join the military, he thought of when he and Ellis last had sex.  
  
  
  
An entire floor of an abandoned hotel had been cordoned off as safe territory, and after they'd searched and secured the rooms and settled, Ellis took it upon himself to take his hat off and bow his head before Coach and Rochelle, asking for their approval, to let he and Nick have a night in privacy.  
  
"Ah know this is dumb and there's more important stuff to be doing with our time here, but if y'all would give yer blessin's... I'd really appreciate it."  
  
"Why are you suddenly asking for permission?" Rochelle asked, amused, with one brow raised, "You guys usually just go ahead and have your fun all night, my ears be damned. At least we got some walls between us this time."  
  
The mechanic was visibly embarrassed, grasping his hat and making a bothered face as he looked away. He nodded and mumbled, "A-Ah know Nick can be pretty loud sometimes..."  
  
"He ain't the only one," Coach bemoaned from the hallway, and Ellis' discomfort intensified-- his mouth tensed as he winced, and he looked to his feet.  
  
"...Ah just--... Listenin' to the two of us almost seems like a _punishment_ or somethin'. I want you to know I _care,_ though. Ah just... I didn't think," Ellis lamented, sounding guilty, “Yeah... ah wasn't thinkin' at all.”  
  
Rochelle just waved her hand before putting it on Ellis' shoulder, "Ellis," she said as she relaxed a little and gave a smile, trying to ease the young man's mind a bit, "Just... do your thing. My only hope is, as usual, that I, too, will find my true love in this smouldering crater of a world, and I will have my revenge.”  
  
Ellis took a moment to reply. "O... Okay."  
  
He timidly looked back up to their party's only lady and said with a low voice, "Ah love y'all. Thank you. Ah mean it."  
  
He confirmed with them the room number, one on the other side of the floor, and went there in the quiet, pushing the door open to see Nick taking off his white jacket to hang it up by the door. They quietly looked at each other for a second before Nick asked, "Is... Is it okay? They're not gonna..."  
  
"Not gonna what?" Ellis frowned almost incredulously. He wanted to know.  
  
"Not gonna--" an audible _gulp,_ "Not gonna hear us, get pissed off, abandon us."  
  
Watching the older man, Ellis just shook his head, reminding him, "Nick, nobody's gonna abandon anybody. You know better than that."  
  
"I do know better, but," Nick grumbled, "It's like I need to be constantly reminded-- my goddamn brain is broken. I'm sorry."  
  
"What'd I tell ya about all the apologizin'?"  
  
"Well, I--" Nick walked over to the large bed and sat on it, sighing, "I really am, though. You see the worst of me and how fucked up I am."  
  
Ellis just quietly looked at him, making a sad frown before he instantly cheered up, smiling at the other man. He walked over to the bed and sat next to him, putting a hand on his blue-clad chest, "Nick, ah see the best of you, too, y'know."  
  
Nick laid on the sarcasm, "You like my asshole that much?"  
  
"You know that ain't what I'm talkin' about."  
  
Nick was quiet as Ellis took off his hat, laying it on the bedside table. The mechanic settled next to Nick again and ran his hand up over his chest, to his shoulder and back down.  
  
"...Every inch of ya is beautiful though, don't get me wrong."  
  
_Beautiful_ , Nick thought. He got "handsome" plenty of times, but never "beautiful". It sounded strange.  
  
"Y'are," Ellis insisted, "Inside an' out."  
  
Nick huffed a "puh" and gave the younger man an unimpressed look. "You've got to be kidding."  
  
"Jus' what d'you think you are? Some kind of briar patch livin' on scorched earth?"  
  
"That describes me pretty well, actually," Nick nodded, and Ellis closed his eyes, just quietly gathering his patience. “Nick,” he began as he smoothed his hands over the gambler's shoulders, “You are the man of my dreams I never even knew I had. On a god-damn whim, you blessed me with the ability to understand m'self. Like 'I shoulda realized this sooner' kinda shit.”  
  
His hands came up to Nick's cheeks, holding his face as he continued, “Other people in your life mighta' convinced you that you was easy to leave behind-- or maybe they convinced you that there weren't anybody worth holdin' on to. Now, I may not know much besides-- uhh, what a radiator leak smells like... what worn-out break pads sound like...” Ellis looked up and to the side, concentrating, “...What kinda' engine's under the hood jus' by listenin'... How hot it's gotta be for tires to start meltin', how much abuse a hubcap can take before it becomes a deadly weapon, that twelve miles an hour is all it takes for a vehicle to crack a human skull...” Looking back into Nick's eyes, he gave him a sincere expression, saying, “...But I do know that a damn _miracle_ brought us together, and I ain't about to let it pass by.”  
  
Nick could only gently nod, a soft, affectionate melancholy in his face as he brought a hand up to hold Ellis' against his cheek. His hands, then, went to Ellis' face, to hold him as he leaned forward and softly kissed him. The midday sun shone in through the curtains of the small hotel room, illuminating dust. Nick pushed forward a little, his thin lips firm against Ellis'. He breathed in through his nose, almost sharp.  
  
Gently, the younger man was pushed against the bed, onto his back under the other man, and he grinned in the soft sunlight. Reaching up, he let his palms run down Nick's collar to his chest, groping as the gambler lowered to kiss his lips, and then his cheek-- thinking the emphasis not enough, Nick took Ellis' jaw in one hand and turned his face just so he could firmly kiss his cheek again and again. Ellis smiled blissfully.  
  
Nick leaned back again, closing his eyes as Ellis massaged his pectorals. “What you thinkin'?” He quietly asked.  
  
“Thinking...” a quiet grunt, “...About... going with the-- military...”  
  
Nick sighed as he felt Ellis run his hands run over his ribs, then up to start unbuttoning his dress-shirt. He looked down at Ellis for a moment, just watching his face; the movement of his eyes, his eyelashes as he blinked, down to his handsome lips that gleamed with spit from one or both of them.  
  
“...Anything you wanna do?” The gambler quietly asked.  
  
Ellis glanced up at him and then continued fighting buttons-- he cocked his head slightly and thought aloud; “...Ah wanna... get in mah truck, early in the morning, and watch you gettin' in the seat next to me. I wanna hear you say ' _Ellis, take me away from this shit-hole,_ ' and then we ride all the way to California, singin' an' eatin' awesome gas station snacks.”  
  
“I meant like, right now.”  
  
“Oh!” The mechanic laughed, “Well, that's easy,” Nick's shirt came open and he lovingly pet the hair over his chest, “I wanna... hold you, an' kiss you... make you feel good...”  
  
The gambler's brows raised, “We might get shot a few days from now, y'know. Anything special you want me to do for you before we maybe _die?_ ”  
  
“The only special thing ah want you to do is be less pess'mistic,” Ellis pulled Nick down on top of him in an embrace and felt the older man's legs tangle with his, his considerable stubble scratching on his neck and against his own-- warmth and wet, then, as Nick kissed his jaw before moving to his throat. Hands shoved in between them, unbuckling Nick's belt. His hips raised slightly as Ellis struggled to pull his dress-pants open and push them down as far as he could.  
  
“I'mma jus'...” Ellis then worked his yellow shirt up with Nick's help and sighed, “...Jus' imagine this is a regular-ass hotel room... Some kinda' vacation...”  
  
“...And you called up a prostitute?” Nick joked, taking Ellis' shirt over his arms, and watched the younger man ball it up and throw it aside.  
  
“I called up _you,_ Nick,” a hand reached up to gently grab the gambler's shoulder.  
  
Nick smirked, “Are we role-playing?”  
  
“Nick, you wouldn't last a _day_ as a sex-worker.”  
  
“Why not?” Sounding a tinge insulted, Nick proceeded to pull and kick his pants off, tossing them on the floor.  
  
Ellis gave a frown of disbelief, “Imagine the most ignorant asshole with nothin' to him but money. 'No names, we got ten minutes, get on the bed, put yer ass in the air.' Would you do it?”  
  
Nick froze, actually thinking. He looked back down at Ellis with a “Hmm,” and raised an indecisive brow as he continued to undress the man underneath him. “...If it was _you,_ ” the gambler finally said, and then his voice went low, “...I'd tell you that you could do whatever the hell you wanted with me. For free.”  
  
“What if I wanted to make love to you, real gentle-like. Treat you with all the affection an' kindness you deserve,” Nick saw Ellis' warm smile as he fantasized, “And then in the mornin'... ah make you breakfast in bed, tell you all kinds a' sweet things... Make sure you know I appreciate ya. If you give me the courtesy to do anythin' for free, I'mma let ya feel like you was worth more than money.”  
  
An ache breathed into Nick's chest as he slowed down, caught in some conflicting thoughts. Ellis' arms reached up, pulling him down into another hug, and all Nick did was let himself get squeezed, his arms drawn together against his chest. His chin rested in the crook of Ellis' neck and the mechanic heard him give a deep sigh. A kiss against his head, then, and Nick's brain was full of _Ellis is doing this because he wants to. He did that because he wanted to. He just doesn't know me well enough. He wouldn't do that if he knew me._ The thoughts blurred and stopped when he was pushed up slightly and kissed deeply, and Ellis was determined to keep him from being too introspective.  
  
He wrapped his arms around the older man and moved them both in a roll to the side-- the wrong side, mind you, and both of them fell off the bed with a panicked bark and a loud _THUMP!_  
  
After Ellis profusely apologized they dragged themselves off the floor and Nick sighed as he crawled to the center of the bed to sit and rub his lower back through his open blue dress-shirt. Ellis took off his mechanic's suit from his legs, letting it hit the floor as he made a “phone” motion with his hand against his face, saying “Ring-ring-ring. Yeah, it's me again. Can you send that one guy who always wears that geek-ass white suit? He goes by 'Nick'.”  
  
The gambler laughed, “I promise that's my real name.”  
  
Getting down to his underwear, Ellis walked over to the end of the bed to be face-to-face with Nick as he climbed onto it, “Ah know. It's on your ID.”  
  
Looking up at him from under his brows, Nick mirthlessly smirked again with a flicker of white, “That ID's fake.”  
  
Ellis' eyes went wide, “ _Fake?_ ” and then just shook his head, “Nevermind. I ain't surprised,” and crawled over. The older man laid back as Ellis settled in between his legs. “You mind me tryin' somethin' out?”  
  
Nick felt Ellis' warm, calloused hands gently run along the insides of his thighs and settled, letting his legs move open a little more as he got comfortable on the hotel pillows. He hummed an unsure sound in reply, and watched as the younger man thumbed the hems of the legs of his boxer-briefs.  
  
“I'm gonna use my mouth,” he hinted.  
  
Nick was a bit surprised, “...This gonna be your first blowjob, or are you gonna eat me out?”  
  
“How d'you eat out a _guy?_ ” Ellis genuinely asked, raising a brow and squinting in confusion.  
  
“I got a hole,” explained the gambler, “You put your tongue in it.”  
  
A look of silent contemplation came over the other man, a little flash of distaste before he very visibly weighed the thought as Nick quietly watched, hesitant. He cleared his throat, “You don't...”  
  
“Would you like it, though?” Ellis hesitantly asked, obviously concerned for himself.  
  
“I haven't washed my ass in a week,” Nick's brows furrowed as the corner of his mouth tugged up almost in a sneer, “I wanna be able to kiss that mouth.”  
  
“Is your dick gonna be that clean?” Ellis grinned at the older man, who blinked before squinting.  
  
“...I would've had a shower, but there's no water,” he grumbled.  
  
Ellis just shrugged, “I'll live,” and turned his attention to the gambler's body again, running his fingers over the black hair below his belly before putting them under the band of his underwear and tugging them down and off with Nick's help. A knee raised, and then Nick kicked them off the other leg onto the floor.  
  
“Sorry,” the older man's voice was low as Ellis situated his legs again, “I stink.”  
  
“Ah don't mind. You got a good smell,” the mechanic's voice was warm but Nick couldn't be convinced. A jolt of arousal shot into the pit of Nick's guts as Ellis' rough, grimy hand grasped his cock, giving it a firm squeeze and his back arched for a moment. His eyes widened at the sight of the younger man lowering his head to get closer to his groin-- over the month's worth of quiet-not-quiet sex wherever they could find themselves (mostly) alone in some calm, Nick observed Ellis' squeamishness when it came to his own body parts in conjunction with his and didn't quite expect anything to change. Nick felt himself a nebulous amount of years older than Ellis (a nebulousness he was curious of but had no real desire to clarify) and knew he himself could endure quite a bit in the name of pleasure that might've been by virtue of being either desensitized or apathetic (but in accordance with phobia), although he did, sometimes, imagine the sweet Georgian between his legs in a number of situations (or positions). His willingness to conform to Ellis' whims or inclinations surprised even him, for whatever it was worth. When he felt his lips on his cock, though, Nick almost panicked.  
  
“Y-You're not gonna ask for advice or anything?” He gently carped, nervous.  
  
“Don't you worry none, Nick,” replied the other man, who slapped the gambler on the inside of his thigh, a little too hard, _slap!_ “ _Ow!_ ” and continued, “I ain't too talented with mah tongue, in case you haven't already noticed, but we all gotta start somewhere, don't we?”  
  
Nick gave a dry swallow and leaned back on the crest of hotel pillows and willed his eyes closed, mouth drawn in a taut line. He felt lips, again, as Ellis kissed his cock, and he weakly smiled. Heat and pressure ebbed at the contact-- the feeling of his warm fingers and lips, and then a sudden lick-- Nick moaned a short “Mm,” and turned his face, not seeing Ellis lean back slightly to stick his tongue out and make a face of taste-based repulsion before going back at it.  
  
Warm, wet licks, moving from low to top drew a loud sigh from the gambler as his hips twitched-- he employed the entirety of his self-control to keep from bucking into Ellis' face.  
  
“Theeeeere we go,” snickered the mechanic as he coaxed the other man's cock to stand, pulling at it and drawing back his foreskin.  
  
Nick opened his mouth to quietly beg, “C... C'mon, Ellis.”  
  
“Now, now...” Making a few demonstrative jaw movements, he carefully set the head of Nick's length against his lips and slowly moved it inside, just onto his tongue. The gambler's lips fell open as he timidly watched, feeling the textures of Ellis' mouth make a deep blooming bliss between his legs before the younger man immediately pulled back, taking Nick's cock out of his mouth as he gave one loud, nigh-asthmatic cough, saying “That's new-- that's somethin' new.” He then looked up at Nick's flush, anxious face, “Jus' gimme a sec, I'll get it on.”  
  
He wanted to give him some encouragement and tell him to take his time, but all the older man could manage was a quiet, distressed sigh. Letting his head fall back again, he closed his eyes.  
  
Hot wetness, again, swathed the head of Nick's cock and he made a frustrated frown, keeping his hips under strained control. He felt Ellis move down further, and then back up, just slowly and carefully-- ringed fingers moved down to pet the mechanic's head.  
  
“Oh-- mmh... like that...” he whispered before Ellis pulled back and coughed a little, again. The older man looked down and offered his soft guidance; “Just... breathe-- through your nose... Concentrate on making sure you don't choke, don't worry about me...”  
  
Ellis nodded placatively and went back to taking Nick's length in his mouth and the gambler let himself gently, carefully thrust up just a fraction as Ellis came down on him. The sensation was overpowering, robbing him of thought and speech-- he panted quiet, little sounds as he felt the fingers around the base of his cock grip and thumb his length where they could, then move to his balls to fondle them-- Nick's eyes squeezed shut as he managed an “E-Ellis...!”  
  
Ellis hummed, “Mm-- mm,” and continued until the gambler came, whole body tense, back arching. Nick lifelessly relaxed as he mechanic sat up with a hand to his mouth while they both caught their breath and squinted before eventually swallowing. He coughed, again, and voice rasping, muttered, “Well that was a peculiar taste.”  
  
“You... didn't have to swallow, y'know...” Nick panted.  
  
“Nick, you swallowed plenny.”  
  
“So?”  
  
Ellis' answer was friendly, “Ah wanted to know.”  
  
After running his hands over his sweaty face, Nick lazily peeled himself off the pillow behind him to gaze at Ellis, who, still in his boxers, had a pretty conspicuous hard-on.  
  
The gambler gave a vague point, “...What're you gonna do about that?”  
  
Ellis' face turned from blank listening to looking down to grinning at Nick, “What d'you _wanna_ do?”  
  
It took a few seconds for Nick to frown into the bedsheets before he stared up at Ellis.  
  
“...Get the lube,” he told him.  
  
With an enthused nod, the younger man ambled off the bed to start looking for Nick's busted-ass bag of ammo, food and petroleum jelly. In the meantime, Nick slowly scooted down to the edge of the bed and positioned himself so Ellis could fuck him while standing at the end.  
  
“Oh, you're over there,” Ellis responded as he turned from the closet, taking the plastic container with him. “So?” he smiled as he approached, “How was it? Not bad, right?”  
  
“Yeah,” The gambler couldn't muster much of a smile in return, weakly airing his sweaty dress-shirt as he looked up at him, “...I know it was kinda uncomfortable. But it was good, you did good.”  
  
Ellis beamed as Nick took the container from his hands and opened it up. He stuck a finger in and took out a bit of cold goop.  
  
“...Somethin' wrong?” Ellis asked, voice soft.  
  
Nick just shook his head in return, making a wry expression, “Nah, it's nothing. Just... old and tired.”  
  
“You ain't old,” Ellis corrected, and Nick looked up at him with a squint, asking, “Do you even know how old I am?”  
  
“Ah do. It was on your ID. Unless that was fake, too.”  
  
“No...” a faint laugh, “No, that part was real.”  
  
Nick leaned back a bit and used his free hand to spread his hole a little, staring off as he concentrated on relaxing, and pushed a slick finger in. He blinked and breathed out as he gently pushed in and out, working himself.  
  
A hushed and tender voice called from right next to him, drawing his gaze up, “Nick...”  
  
Ellis' eyes glittered as he made a sentimental, kind of dumb-looking expression, “Nick... Yer really... the most beautiful man I ever did meet...” Nick's eyes darted away and back in confusion as he continued, “An' when you get all sensual, it's really...” a dry swallow, “...really... _somethin'._ ”  
  
“...More beautiful than Jimmy Gibbs?” Nick almost laughed, if not for the incredibly distracting feeling of his own finger inside him.  
  
“I ain't never said Jimmy Gibbs was beautiful, but... definitely, darlin'.”  
  
Nick felt strangely flattered for some stupid reason in the moment it took for Ellis to lean over him and kiss him. He opened his mouth into it and pressed his tongue against Ellis', feeling him make a muffled moan.  
  
When they drew back Nick returned to his task at hand and croaked, “Jesus christ, is that what I taste like?” He grabbed the container of lubricant again and opened it up.  
  
“It ain't _that_ bad,” Ellis assured him as he watched Nick push more of the petroleum slime inside his opening with two fingers. The sight of Nick fingering himself as he gently panted, eyes fluttering shut was somewhat entrancing-- Ellis' expression turned blank as he continued to gaze and felt a smouldering throb sitting in his belly and cock and testicles. His face and neck turned flush again and he slowly knelt down to quietly see.  
  
Thinking he had an audience, Nick used his other hand to lift his knee to his chest and give the younger man more of a view. He pushed his fingers apart, little by little, easing the tight muscle open and sighed as he moved his fingers in and out... in and out...  
  
“You...” Ellis murmured as he leaned, putting a hand on Nick's shin, “You really... like that, don't ya.”  
  
A hazy, amused smile came over the older man's face.  
  
“...Get your dick ready. I want you to mess me up,” he rumbled, and Ellis just nodded and reached over to grab the lube and open it up.  
  
When he was a good balance of done and couldn't wait any more, Nick withdrew his fingers and got into position, lining his butt up with the end of the bed and waited for Ellis. A hand grabbed the crook of his knee and lifted it, and to help Nick bent the other, baring his wet hole. Looking down, he watched as Ellis stepped forward and carefully pushed his achingly hard, slick cock up inside him. The gambler carefully breathed in, relaxing himself as he took in Ellis' length-- when he was in, he leaned over the older man to press a hand to his chest, to feel over it and massage there as he slowly pulled his hips back, and then slowly pushed them forward.  
  
Nick made a soft gasp, just lying back and letting Ellis slowly push into him. If this was the last time he and Ellis would do anything before being shot or locked up for good, he'd savor it and take in every ounce of his affection-- save it for a rainy day. He stretched his arms up over his head and basked in the sensation of the mechanic's cock sliding in and out of him and the movement of his hips nudging his entire body over and over.  
  
Nick closed his eyes and didn't see Ellis' warm smile as he spoke to him between breaths, “...Yer so beautiful, Nick...” which still sounded strange, “Such a pretty thing...”  
  
“Ellis...” the gambler panted, “...Please-- faster...!”  
  
The younger man immediately obeyed, pushing quicker and harder, thrusting strong against Nick's prostate, making him cry out a needy “Shit...!”  
  
He continued to bounce his hips against Nick's backside and watched the gambler toss his sweat-soaked face to the side as he writhed with pleasure, watched the swift rising and falling of his chest-- a hard swallow among his hard breaths-- Ellis saw Nick's dark eye open a little and gaze down at him as he panted, a strange, unguarded look serving to connect them in the moment. Nick reached his hand out to Ellis, and Ellis took it as he was pulled into an embrace.  
  
He lay for a moment with his head against the gambler's chest, feeling sweaty hands on his shoulder and holding his head against his pounding heart. Fingers found the fabric of the older man's shirt sleeve and clung to it as they breathed together.  
  
Nick's voice was a rumble in his chest; “...Keep going,” he requested, and Ellis did his best to nod and continue, holding himself up from the bed with hands on either side of Nick's waist.  
  
The mechanic leaned in to mutter to the other man, “...Nick, yer a-- mmh, special kinda... handsome when you take a dick,” which made Nick laugh an airy, tired laugh as he was jostled. Ellis drew his hand down to Nick's cock as it bounced against his stomach and grabbed it to drag his fingers up and down it as quickly as he could manage.  
  
The sensation of the gambler's tightness and heat drawing him in, and seeing him aching with lust started to quickly become overwhelming-- he muttered to the man below him, “I-- I'm gonna...”  
  
Nick gave some fast nods and rested his hands up on Ellis' shoulders as he continued to rapidly pound into him. The gambler squeezed his eyes shut, pushing his chin to his collar as he sighed, “A-Ah-- Ah...! E-Ellis--...!”  
  
His cock flinched in Ellis' hand and spurted over his fingers and Nick's stomach as the gambler bit his lip and his toes curled. Just before he finished as well, Ellis pulled out from Nick and came into the same hand with an elated moan. He took a moment to lean onto the bed over the gambler's leg, out of breath, and watched his face as his breath slowed. Wiping his hand on the end of the bed, Ellis sluggishly climbed up next to Nick to lay down, but was dragged into another hug. His heart pounded as he felt the older man's arms around him, squeezing him.  
  
Ellis tiredly held him in return, pressing his forehead into Nick's collar. After some minutes he felt the arms around him relax, and he leaned back to look him in the face-- Nick had fallen asleep.  
  
_...Musta' tired him out,_ he thought, or, perhaps the other man was relaxed enough with him that he could just sleep as he felt. Ellis gave a big smile as he took the moment to just watch him, absorbed in studying his un-bothered face. Untangling his arm and reaching up, he smoothed the stray hairs from the slope of his forehead before stroking the short, wiry waves near his temple. His fingers came to his ear and he traced the outer rim, down to his jaw, and he thought about how much it might've changed in his life, a very young Nick, and what sort of things... this ear under his fingers might have heard, long ago.  
  
Ellis leaned in to kiss Nick's thoughtlessly parted lips. It wasn't important; what he would hear from now out was all that mattered. That ear was his to speak to, to give words to unburden, to lift, to relinquish the past. He felt a scorching fire in his chest as his smile faded-- God had let him find this man, and he would drag him from the hell in his brain; he renewed his vow. He would not abide any other way.  
  
Some time later, after he'd rolled over, Nick opened his eyes a little and saw Ellis' blurry outline as he leaned against the window sill across from the bed and distantly wondered what he could've been thinking about, staring out that window, into the misery below.  
  
  
  
  
At the penitentiary Nick fell asleep. In the middle of the night he woke up, inexplicably awake, and sat up as well as he could under Ellis' bunk and just listened to the silence and the buzzing of the lights, eyes wide in the dark. After a moment he found himself staring at Coach's back from the other side of the room as he slept-- slept, Nick had to make sure-- and after a terrifying four seconds he heard his deep snore and watched him breathe.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

A man dressed in carbon-fiber gear walked up the hallway, shouting into each room as he passed, “Wake-up call! You got twenty minutes!” over and over. He poked his head into room D and shouted “Wake-up call!” and Nick bolted up from his bed, banging his head on the bunk above with an audible _BUMP!_ and grunted as he tiredly tried to rub the pain away. He looked around and saw Coach start to stir as the armored staff member kept calling, up then down the hall.  
It took him a few sleepy moments, but Nick slowly swung his legs out of bed and sat there in his underwear, mashing his palm over his face and yawning. He turned to his bag and pulled it open to look at the clothes he was given as the staff member poked their head into the door and shouted, “You up? Everybody up in here? Huh?”

Coach groaned and croaked, “...We been on the run for a whole month, can we just _sleep in?_ ”

“Nope, rules,” he shouted and then disappeared with the sound of his steel-toed boots. Coach cursed under his breath and threw his bedsheets open as Nick pulled a red button-up dress shirt from his bag with a repugnant frown. He quickly looked at the tag (ninety percent polyester) and lifelessly sighed, looking back at the entire thing. A button was missing from the collar, but the most glaring thing; “I hate red,” Nick quietly grumbled.

He shoved it back into the bag and took something else. A black v-neck, it would do. He got dressed and stood up to stretch, and then noticed Ellis hadn't moved-- shoving his be-slippered foot between the lower mattress and the metal frame he pulled himself up to stand chest-level with Ellis' bed and looked him over.

Ellis was quite asleep-- breathing soundly, a soft expression, eyes gently closed and his brows just slightly knit. Nick cocked his head a little, gazing as a fondness came over his face. He sharply looked back to check if Coach was watching before leaning over the edge of the top bunk to take a deep breath and tenderly kiss the younger man's lips. Ellis weakly kissed back, and his eyes slowly opened.

Nick smiled, “Morning, sleeping beauty.”

“...Well,” Ellis sleepily grinned back, “Good mornin' to you, too.”

“C'mon,” the gambler nodded, “Time to get up.”

He dismounted as Ellis slowly sat up with a long, yowling yawn.

“...'Time is it?” he groaned as he looked down at Nick and Coach as they tidied their beds. Coach shrugged and grumbled, “Too early.”

“Gotta be around 10, right?” Nick looked up at him while the mechanic lazily got dressed, “Breakfast.”

Coach tucked his long-sleeved shirt into his pants and made an almost excited hum, repeating “Breakfast!” before he walked out, into the bright hallway. Ellis climbed down the ladder at the end of the bunk, which was nothing but functional and barely adequately that, catching himself once as he slipped on the smooth, square rungs, and his feet hit the cement floor as he steadied. 

He yawned once more before his gaze landed on Nick again. The younger man's face immediately brightened up.

“Yer lookin' pretty nice today, Nick,” he commented. Nick half-heartedly shrugged in return, “Don't have a lot to work with.”

Ellis tried to instill some self-esteem in him, “Ah know you like to look good, 'cuz... well, you always look _good,_ but remember it's the man that makes the sweatpants.”

The gambler stopped himself from knee-jerk reacting with snark, and instead just stared at Ellis as the barred window cast its white-grey light into the small room. Ellis watched in return as he lifted his hands to idly feel the edge of one of his fingernails.

“...Ellis,” Nick began as he saw the mechanic squint at him with furrowed brows, “Thanks. You know how hard this is.”

Ellis gave him a warm, encouraging smile before he spoke, “Y'know-- I was thinkin'...” he made some pondering gestures, looking away and then back at Nick, “Nick, what you wanna do after this?”

“After... this?” the gambler's brows raised, “You mean-- after breakfast?”

“Naw, silly, I mean after we get out of here,” Ellis smirked like that should've been obvious. Nick just made a confused expression and blinked.

“...I can't...” the gambler finally murmured, “...I can't even imagine anything past this. If we get out of here... it's not like we can just go back to whatever normal was.” Looking away almost remorsefully Nick continued, “I'm not trying to be an asshole by saying this, but I don't know if there's anything beyond being here.”

“There is,” Ellis assured him. The older man looked back at him with a slight frown and saw Ellis cross his arms and just watched him.

“...There is,” Nick repeated incredulously.

Ellis raised his chin slightly, “Don't matter if there ain't. There _is_.”

There was a moment of silence as they both looked at each other, waiting as Nick squinted. The guard walked past their door and shouted “Five minutes!” and Nick whipped back to shout in return, “ _Shuddap!_ ”

When he turned back to Ellis, he heard the younger man speak, “So get to thinkin' about it. Ah've already got some ideas you might like.”

Nick could've left it at that, but he was curious. “...Like what? Starting a farm? Picking clams up the Californian coast?” He gave a smarmy smile, in spite of himself.

“Nah, I was thinking more like goin' cross-country,” Ellis looked up and stroked his stubble, “Both of our professions are kinda travel-related, so I figured-- well, there ain't no way Nick was gonna settle down behind a white picket fence at the end of the apocalypse, ah mean, he travels and gambles for a reason, right? It's jus' incompatible.”

Nick just stared at him, completely blank with surprise as Ellis continued with an insight he wasn't aware of him possessing, “So ah figured, we could go around drivin' and doin' our own fixin'.”

He looked back at Nick, who continued to silently stare, and decided to go on, “Maybe we could save up for somethin' later on, like a house at the end of a long road, or...” Ellis waited for Nick's response, and the gambler just thought for a moment. 

“...What would you do if it was just you? If I wasn't around?” he softly asked.

Ellis blinked and gave a gentle expression, “...I'd go lookin' for you.”

“You can't live without me?” Nick scoffed a little.

Ellis replied, “Can you live without me?”

That aching pain soaked back into Nick's chest and he gave a sad frown at Ellis before he told him, “Ellis... Don't even talk about shit like that.”

As it turned out, it was actually 8 and not 10, and the four survivors sat in the common area with everyone else and silently waited. Coach and Ellis perched on the couch there while Rochelle and Nick sat on and leaned against its arm-rests, absently watching TV as Ellis yawned again and again.

“...How much sleep did you get?” Rochelle asked him.

Ellis yawned again, “Like... a couple of hours, maybe... Mah brain figures one of us oughtta be awake.”

Leaning over, Rochelle put a comforting hand on Ellis' arm for a moment before he leaned back in the couch and closed his eyes.

“...That bed's nice,” Coach muttered as he stared off and Nick nodded as his gaze lifted to watch a stray blowfly circle the light, “Better than sleeping on the ground.”

After some quiet, Ellis' eyes slowly opened and he looked at Rochelle, who was staring at the floor in silence.

“...Rochelle?” he murmured. She turned her head a little.

“I guess we shouldn't tell anyone that carriers were being shot,” she said, quietly.

They said nothing for a moment, before Coach replied, “This _is_ a shelter run by the military.”

“Why are they keeping carriers here?” Rochelle softly wondered out loud as she glanced across the room.

“When I saw the doctor, he didn't take my blood or my bone marrow or nothin',” mumbled Ellis.

“...What the hell are we doing here,” Nick griped, and the other three immediately replied with a groan of “... _Nick_...”

“ _What?_ ” he barked in protest as he looked back at them.

Ellis leaned forward in the couch before standing up, “I'm gonna talk to somebody.” The three of them watched and Rochelle pleaded calmly, “Be careful, Ellis,” as Nick silently glared at his curly head. Ellis threw his glance around the room-- aside from the group of three women they met yesterday, there was four other people, and one of them caught his gaze as they accidentally looked at him in return; a man with glasses and long, brown hair who seemed to shirk back with a frown as Ellis gave him a sudden bright-eyed and toothy smile.

He hopped over to him and the man looked back and forth like he was looking for an escape, although when Ellis pulled out a chair and sat down next to him he knew he was lost-- he tried to look casual as the mechanic leaned back and hooked an arm over the back of his own chair.

“Hey, man,” Ellis nonchalantly greeted him.

“Uh... Hi.”

Quickly leaning in, Ellis' voice went low, “Do you believe in zombies?”

The other man just gave a confused frown, “Are you trying to solicit a religion?”

“Naw, man,” he leaned back again, “I'm tryin' to solicit the _truth._ ”

“So...” some nervous laughter, “It's not a religion, it's a _conspiracy_.”

Ellis sighed, “Do you believe in 'em or not?”

“...What? Why? Who the hell are you?” The man pushed up his glasses as he glared at the mechanic with dead fish eyes. Ellis was surprised; “Oh, ah didn't introduce myself, my apologies. I'm Ellis,” he smiled.

He then pointed to his other cohorts, “Over there is Rochelle, Coach, and Nick.”

“You're friends with _that_ guy?” the bespectacled guy mumbled and Ellis' brows knit, “Huh? You mean Nick? Oh yeah, we close. We _real_ close.”

The guy gave Ellis a distasteful, suspicious side-eye and Ellis suddenly realized what he implied-- he quickly added “L-Like brothers, y'know. He's a good guy.”

Nick, from the other side of the room, raised his head as they both glanced at him and shouted, “You'd better not be talking about me!”

“Ah ain't sayin' anything bad!” Ellis called back as the other guy at the table stared in discomfort.

“I don't care! Every and any thing you know about me is not for public consumption!”

Ellis watched Coach turn to Nick and speak to him in a low mumble, which seemed to turn into some quiet arguing before the mechanic looked back to the man at the table with him, “Anyway, d'you think zombies are real?”

“...Is that dude your dealer or something?” the guy asked, and Ellis' face scrunched up.

“Nick ain't a drug dealer,” he insisted.

“He looks like one.”

“Are you gonna answer my question or _what?_ ”

“Hell no, aren't you guys friends with Pamela?”

Ellis quickly glanced over to the lady at the table of three, the one with the facial scar, and back.

“...There ain't enough of you guys to be makin' enemies in here, don'tcha think?” the mechanic raised a brow. The guy with the glasses just gave him a grave glare, “I'm not gonna be buddies with anyone on Houston's city council. Ever. That's how she got here.”

“Huh?” Ellis gave a distantly confused look, “What d'you mean?”

“She got into this shelter because she's got connections, the same with her secretary over there. If you ask me, she should be out there fighting the angry mobs herself instead of sitting back, here.”

He then got up and walked away, presumably to the public washroom as Ellis just watched. Slowly, he turned his head back as he thought and consciously closed his mouth.

As he quietly walked back to the other three survivors, Ellis heard Rochelle speak to him, “I... take it you didn't find anything out.”

He shook his head, “Nothin' worth knowin'.”

“You didn't tell him... anything, right?” Nick looked up at the mechanic with a deadly frown before getting a slap on the shoulder, “Re-lax, lemon squeezy. I was just defendin' your character.”

“What?” Nick blurted, “What did he say about me?”

Ellis sighed as he sat back into the couch again, “Like ah said, nothin' worth knowin'.”

“What an asshole,” Nick grumbled under his breath.

Breakfast at 10 was ordinary-- the shelter's denizens were spread out around the cafeteria, each to their own circles. Nick watched Ellis eat a sandwich with vegetables on the side and stole his fork to take potatoes. Ellis spat, “Hey!”

“Close your mouth when you eat,” Nick murmured as he ate Ellis' food.

Coach sat back, already done, and asked Rochelle, “Ro, where are you sleepin'?”

“In C, with those three ladies,” she answered, pointing vaguely, and smiled, “I got a top bunk.”

“You're right next to us,” he remarked, before they got distracted by Ellis barking, “Nick!” and grabbing the gambler's arm as he tried to take more of his food.

The younger man wrung Nick's wrist as he growled at him, “Get yer own!” and Nick just stared as he responded, “They're not even good. Are you really gonna fight me for some garbage penitentiary potatoes?”   
Ellis smiled in return and shook his head, “Nick, that ain't gonna work on me.”

Nick quietly told him, “Trust me, they taste like nuclear waste,” his smile reaching his eyes, and Ellis leaned towards him to quietly tell him, “Nick, you keep that up and I'm gonna kiss you.”

The gambler's smile faded and Ellis gave a toothy grin, chuckling to himself in amusement before he bellowed a loud “Ha!” He got up to leave, “Now you-- don't touch any more of 'em!” and come back with a tray of food for Nick and placed it on the table in front of him as Rochelle commented, “At least we don't have to worry about entertainment.”

“ _Hell_ no,” Coach sighed, “If this is the... TV of my life, turn the channel,” he crossed his arms, “Fix the rabbit's ears, cut the cables. Throw it out the window. Watch it smash onto somebody's car on the sidewalk.”

“Don't take me hostage,” Nick sneered at Ellis as the mechanic took a handful of his potatoes, telling him, “Well stop skimmin' off the backs of the workin' class, ya potato-wage thief.”

Nick looked away in sour disinterest and noticed the rest of the room had been watching them-- he blinked, surprised, as the three ladies at the nearest table laughed to themselves and the youngest quickly looked away, embarrassed. The eldest raised her chin as she told them, “You guys are always so... animated, like you're always having fun!”

Not knowing how to respond to that, Ellis just told her, “That's cool!” and smiled before he returned to eating the potatoes in his hand and thinking. Nick turned away, too, arms crossed, and heard Rochelle yelp and felt something touch his leg-- he was surprised at how much his body jolted at the contact.

“Nicholas!” came a voice to his right-- he immediately turned his head and saw the girl with the cast lowering a little, looking under their table, and then back when Ellis made a surprised “Woah!”

The younger man looked down and smiled as he pushed his knees apart to let the face of a big, old golden retriever settle on his thigh as it sniffed up. “Well, hello!” he chirped, giving the dog a quick pet before he took a corner of Nick's sandwich to give him. Nicholas took it gently and then left when his caretaker begged him to come back.

“Dogs,” she admonished, trying to ease the awkwardness, “This is why I only bought cats!”

“You buy cats?” the blonde one at her table asked, “People just give them away for free, y'know, they're not like dogs.”

“...You buy dogs?” The youngest asked in reply. She nodded, “If you want a good one, sure.”

“Nobody I know has ever _bought_ a dog,” the lady with the cast stated as others gave sounds of disbelief. She looked around the room for someone to agree, to the left and then right to the four survivors.

Ellis blinked at her for a moment before he told her, “I ain't never, but mah buddy Keith bought a dog once. One a'them real fancy full-breeds, paid two grand for it. Guy who sold it to him said he found a couple of 'em abandoned in the woods while he was out trappin'. That thing was cute as a fuzzy lil' button,” he smiled.

The very mention of Keith piqued the ears of the three other survivors, and Rochelle and Nick leaned forward onto the table, resting their faces in their palms as they decided to give in and listen, whatever may happen, while the three women at the other table slowly turned to him, listening with some quiet bewilderment. Ellis continued;

“Now, I didn't know this at the time, but there ain't no dog in the world that grows to be seven hundred pounds and five feet at the shoulder-- little buddy was so big he could barely fit in the dump of mah truck, not that he ever needed a ride-- he could just do whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted, and break hinges off the doors in his way,” Ellis wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked up, remembering, “The _real_ trouble started when he broke into the local corner store and ate through seven litres of anti-freeze and twelve pounds of chocolate-- which, as you probably know, is poison to dogs-- and when we took 'em to the vet he got a little _punchy,_ and the doctor had to put the place in lockdown, 'cuz there was just, like, blood everywhere, and I'm pretty sure the doctor was just mad at Keith because one time at a barbeque he told his son that the seeds in bananas are tarantula eggs.”

By this time the entire cafeteria was silent, listening and staring, baffled. Ellis turned back in his chair to face Nick as he stared off, thinking.

“Now that I think of it, Keith might'a bought a bear for two thousand dollars. But who _sells_ bears when you can get a free bear just by walkin' into the woods and mindin' yer own business?” He asked with genuine curiosity. Rochelle slowly nodded at his side like she finally understood.

Suddenly the other side of the cafeteria exploded with laughter, causing Ellis to turn back in alarm. Mostly it was everyone except the girl with the cast and the cranky guy with glasses who found what seemed to be a hearty amusement in Ellis' story. Nick, Rochelle and Coach were also quite surprised.

Coach leaned forward, “Y'all know this is a story about a bear gettin' messed up on windshield wash and maulin' a vet, right?”

“Were they okay afterwards?” Rochelle asked.

Ellis shrugged, “I think so.”

“You're allowed to laugh, Rochelle,” the blonde lady called from the other table, “See?”

“Ellis,” Rochelle turned to him and worriedly smiled and nodded a little, “--I'm guessing the bear got _shot_ after all that?”

The mechanic hummed and hawed for a moment, “I'm _pretty sure_ he ran away afterwards... There was rumors he was livin' in the basement of an abandoned mall, but hey, believe half of what you see and none of what you hear, right.”

Rochelle turned back and rested her forehead on her arms on the table with a light _thunk_ as others in the cafeteria laughed again. “Y'all liked that one?” Ellis turned full-body to them with a grin, “I got plenty of stories!”

He got encouragement, and Ellis' eyes practically glittered with delight.

Nick figured this would take a while, so as Ellis continued, all effort, emphasis, build-up, great delivery, the gambler slowly ate his breakfast and savored the taste. There was something about the sandwich as well as the vegetables that tasted distinctly like it was from a hospital, but maybe it was just his association-- regardless, after all the starving and eating military rations and literal grass, this disgusting whole-wheat with ham and mayonnaise was rather thought-provoking.

He watched as Ellis spoke and spoke with his eternally dirty-looking hands, and figured that this, too, was a part of him pouring himself out. He got a lot out of this one, though, so it was mutual. And at that thought, Nick suddenly remembered a hot wind pouring in from the Bahamas in a bright, orange sunset and the blinding flash of the sun reflected in a distant scope. Out of breath-- turning to look back-- long shadows, the feeling of warm sweat rolling down his sides. It was a fantasy, now, cut off from the present in one big, fell chop; the present that never ended had suddenly become the past. Even that hell, too, had a longing venom. Even that hell, too. What was he thinking of, again?

Ellis' stories arched beyond being ejected from the cafeteria, and Nick snuck away from the noise, the sudden boom of laughter and hot air of the common area. He knew the stories being told then; they were his experiences, too.

A door was open somewhere, letting a cold, nigh-wintry breeze run along the walls. Nick took a deep breath as he felt it, and turned to see a dark hallway with a door ajar and light from a grey sky shining in. It tugged the strings in the back of Nick's brain a little-- a door to the outside, left open. He listened for a moment and felt his fingers weakly twitch and ball up. There was a sound.

A courtyard of sorts stretched out between stone walls, and Nick quickly looked around before he saw the lady with the broken arm standing next to her neighbour's dog-- Nicholas immediately looked to the intruder, and the woman, too, when she noticed. The gambler nodded as a greeting before he walked closer.

“Hey,” he said, and she waved a little in reply. Nick found the nearest fence-post and leaned his arm against it.

The lady didn't take her eyes off him as she responded, “No offense, but you're a little scary.”

“'Scary,'” Nick repeated, making a somewhat offended expression. The lady with the cast continued to look at him with a rather emotionless face.

“Some people seem to think you're in a gang,” she told him, “I think you're just a 'possession of a concealed weapon' sort of guy.”

Nick gave her a charming smirk, “I can put my hands on the wall if you wanna pat me down,” and immediately started imagining someone beating him in the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper. He then fought his smile into an awkward, wavy line as he waited for her reply.

“...Being a part of your group coming here from Georgia must've been... _weird_.”

“Yeah. Anyway,” Nick took a step back. “Better?”

“Better.”

“I wanted to tell you,” he spoke again with his usual scowl, “Yesterday, when we were all in the cafeteria...”

She nodded, and then frankly told Nick, “I know what you guys were saying was true.”

“...I figured, and I don't know your reasons, but...” the gambler was as sincere as he could be, “If you're afraid of them-- Me, Coach, Ro and Ellis, as long as we're around, you don't have to worry about zombies.” He nodded at her, “We're in this crazy shit together. Us versus them.”

She just looked at him for a moment before giving a quiet nod. The lady with the broken arm then told him, “Don't talk about it too much. Fighting's not really tolerated.”  
Nick frowned, and she explained; “Fighting, with each other. With the guards. Don't do it.”

Nick listened, waiting for her to continue, but she just took Nicholas, the golden retriever, and went back inside. 

The gambler sighed to himself as he returned to the warmth of the penitentiary.

Turning a corner, Nick saw the afore-mentioned hick as he was walking down the hall, looking for him. Ellis lit up with a surprised smile and Nick felt his guard break up for a moment, a slight displacement that left him with a strange, detached and distantly reprieved expression, just for that second. It quickly became a calm smirk.

“Storytime's over?” He asked as the mechanic approached and he walked to meet him-- it took an especial amount of self-control to keep his arms from reaching out and taking the younger man's. Ellis, too, stood back a little, showing restraint, and answered, “Yeah, I mean-- I figured I'd save some for later, y'know,” he grinned, “Only problem is now ah'm bored.”

“Well, they took my cards. Actually, my cards were in my coat. They took my coat,” Nick explained before he watched Ellis glance down to the dip in his shirt-collar, then back up.

“Y'know...” Ellis' voice got a little quieter and serious, “They were askin' about you.”

“What'd you tell them?”

“That you was divorced and you didn't wanna get together with anyone ever again. I ain't gonna complain, but I ain't gonna pretend like I wasn't... ah dunno, jealous or somethin',” he grumbled.

Nick's brows furrowed a little as he looked at Ellis' face, his lips tight with discouragement and his disappointed eyes staring up at him-- the gambler said nothing and endured his guilt until Ellis' expression turned to imploring, “Can I tell 'em--” he gave a small smile as he took another step closer, “--Tell people that yer mine? I want 'em to know.”

Nick, of course, shook his head, “No, Ellis, if they find out we're gay they'll kill us in our sleep.”

“Well, now, I don't think--”

“Please,” the gambler tiredly pleaded, patting a hand on his shoulder, “Do this for me.”

Ellis obviously didn't really expect this to go any other way, but he still sighed a defeated “Rock and roll, dear,” as he turned around and started walking back. Shrugging back on his unaffected exterior, Nick followed him until they both heard the sound of crying coming from the common hall.

Walking a little faster, Ellis entered and saw the clique of three ladies sitting at their elected table as the eldest and youngest sat back, silently watching the blonde one as she cried into her hands. Ellis looked to the other two, waiting for an explanation, and they just shook their heads and continued.

When he came closer, the oldest of them explained, “She lost someone,” and the other lady tiredly stood up, still sobbing, and went to wander away-- Ellis gave a look of panicked confusion before he quickly walked over and put a hand on her shoulder-- “Ma'am?” and leaned in to try to make eye contact. When she didn't reply, Ellis carefully pulled her into a formal (but comforting) hug.

The other two women looked alarmed, and glanced around to spot someone as Nick leaned against a couch to watch.

“...It's gon' be okay,” Ellis quietly assured her, “Everything's gon' be okay,” and let her sob into his chest.

In less than ten seconds, everyone present heard a sudden, sharp “Hey!” from down the hall-- a man dressed in protective gear holding an M-16 walked towards them, and as soon as he was in eyesight, Nick went to his feet to stand behind Ellis. The mechanic watched the guard walk towards him, eyes wide with surprise as he was told, “You, c'mon, back.”

Ellis squinted and managed a “What?” 

“Stop that. C'mon,” the guard ordered as he nodded and pointed, telling them to separate.

There was an awkward second as Ellis just frowned in confusion. He shook his head a little and said “It's just a hug, man.” The blonde lady pushed him away and gave a loud, miserable sniff.

“I don't make the rules,” the other man told him, “You're new here, so I'll give you a warning. You get three warnings, though, and then you'll have to see the higher-ups.”

Every insolent, cop-hating fibre in Ellis' body refused to take this as caution-- he stood up straight and frowned, “What d'you _think_ I was doin'? I saw somebody cryin', so I gave her a hug. You expect me to just stand around and _watch?_ ”

“I told you, I don't make the rules. You don't like 'em, you can feel free to leave.”

Nick stood up from the couch behind Ellis and just watched-- firstly, because he wanted to hear the reason, and secondly because he was genuinely curious as to how this would play out-- surely they wouldn't respond with violence? Nick glanced down at the M-16 held to the guard's abdomen and thought for a moment about why he was holding it.

“Yer a human being, man! You tellin' me you think this dog-shit rule is more important than makin' somebody _feel_ better?” he pointed back, “They told me she was cryin' because she's _mournin'_ somebody!”

The guard's voice rose, “You want this to be another warning?” and Nick felt a fluttering in his stomach. One glance: trigger discipline, no red. He watched Ellis step towards the guard, nearly chest-to-chest, and heard him lowly tell him, “I'mma keep huggin' people and just see what y'all do.” “...Oh yeah?” “Mm-hm!” The other people present were quietly getting more and more anxious.

If someone moves their arm-- if anyone winds up, if this goes the way every other argument with a guy with a gun has gone in his experiences... Nick's eyes were wide and he realized he was holding his breath. Anger would be very useful were this to go badly-- but _badly_ \-- what was he hoping for? Before he could do or say anything, he heard a voice behind him--

“Nick, what the ever-loving hell is going on?” Rochelle quietly asked with some controlled panic. Nick looked back at her and then again at Ellis.

“You can't stop me,” he heard Ellis declare lowly as the mechanic confidently smirked.

“We can lock you up, you backwater little bitch, and see how you feel, then,” the guard smiled, moving forward slightly to meet him. The gambler behind Ellis took a deep breath and felt Rochelle's hand take the crook of his elbow, not to stop him, but in anxiety-- they watched Ellis as he quietly stared at the guard, and then their mechanic stepped back to lean against the back of the other couch.

“Sure,” he answered, “I'll see you then, I guess, unless you get yer head outta yer ass.”

The guard just stared for a moment, surprised, and gave him an unimpressed frown before walking away, to wherever he was going before. The entire room went silent, until they were sure he was gone, and even then there was a painful silence afterwards.

Rochelle let go of Nick's arm and walked over to Ellis and shook her head admonishingly, “I literally went to the washroom and when I came back you were--” she showed her hands, “Like--?!”

“Nothin' _happened,_ ” Ellis looked at her, raising a brow.

“What's your definition of 'nothing'?” She incredulously whispered.

He tried to settle her with a well-meaning smile, “C' _mawn,_ there wasn't any... _handcuffs_ or _tasers,_ or...”

“Ellis,” sweating, the reporter leaned over to put her hand on the back of the couch next to Ellis, “We literally had a conversation about the military this _morning,_ ” she whispered, “Carriers got shot. They have guns. We don't know what'll happen if we piss them off.”

Thinking for a second, Ellis looked at her, then at Nick, a few feet away who was staring back almost blankly-- back to Rochelle, then, and Ellis nodded a little sheepishly. She watched him for a moment as he raised a hand to rub the back of his neck and uttered a low, “Sorry.”  
He cocked his head, almost in admittance, and continued, “...It's just... It's ridiculous, for people who've seen some shit... Like, we can't even hug each other? Why not?”

“It's stupid... It's _really_ stupid, but,” she sighed, looking up at him and tiredly rest her hand on his bicep, “Let's just leave fist-fighting the guards until we've been here for a month or two.”

Nick walked over and Ellis' eyes darted away for a second in remorse, “Sorry, Nick. Didn't mean to stress everybody out.”

“What do I know?” Nick shrugged, “I was one insult away from starting that fight if you weren't going to.”

Rochelle just nodded, muttering, “Leave it to you, Nick, to enact my actual nightmares,” Ellis then butted in with his bright, lopsided grin, “I _knew_ you were back there watchin' me like 'Jesus Christ Ellis is so damn cool when he's brave an' sticks up for people-- and he was _totally_ justified and right-- and that is some real goddamn husband material,'” causing Nick to glare at him as Rochelle retorted, “What about your ideal husband? Was it _really_ a distrustful hypochondriac that hates literally everything?” “Nick ain't a hypochondriac, Ro, he's a germ-a-phobe. There's a difference.”

“ _Stop!_ ” Nick firmly told (and nearly begged) them, and they quietly watched him as he glared at them both.

He gestured to the two ladies seated at the table a couple of meters away and Ellis and Rochelle looked to them, and then back to Nick, quietly trying to imagine how far into the closet he was.

A voice came from the table, “Sorry!”  
They looked back over and the oldest, sitting there, explained, “...Sorry we didn't tell you all. About the hugging.”

“So... why isn't _hugging_ allowed?” Rochelle called.

The youngest lady answered, “They said it wasn't fair for everyone.”

“Wudn't fair?” Ellis squinted, confused, “Fair for who? The guards? I can hug 'em if they wanna. But that guy's gonna have to _work_ for it if he wants a hug from me.”

“No, no,” the older lady said, “Not fair for all of _us_. Because, I suppose, some of us don't have anyone to hug us.”

That made Ellis even more confused, “Who's not gettin' hugs? You mean like, that guy with the glasses?” He shrugged, “I'll hug 'em.”

“You don't want to,” the youngest assured him as the oldest at the table continued, “That's all we heard. That's all they'll tell us.”

“What's your name again?” An unfamiliar voice called from behind them. The three survivors turned and saw a man sitting on a couch at the other side of the common area and realized they didn't notice he was even there.

“Ellis,” the mechanic shouted before he was beckoned over, and Rochelle and Nick followed.

When they approached, Nick suppressed some surprise at how handsome the man sitting there was-- tall, well-proportioned, a beautiful face, and Rochelle's reaction was fairly similar. She opened her mouth to say something when the man spoke; “Did you just say you'd hug anybody?”

Ellis gave an indignant frown, “Well-- that ain't exactly what I said, but sure.”

The man nodded at Nick, “Give him a hug,” he commanded, and Ellis turned and jokingly attempted to wrap his arms around him and Nick quickly pushed him away with both hands, hissing “Get off me.”

The man sitting on the couch laughed, amused, as Rochelle roughly shoved Nick aside to stand in front of him and give her most obviously charming smile, pretending to delicately scratch behind her ear, “How in the world did I not notice you here before?” she quietly giggled, “My name is Rochelle.”

“Right, I remember you from those stories,” the handsome man pointed at Ellis, “D'you know what he said you guys have done?”

Rochelle looked to Ellis, asking him “What did you _say_ we did?” and Ellis scoffed, “Jus' bein' zombie-killin' badasses. Nothin' that ain't true.”

The handsome man just looked at Nick and Rochelle like he was expecting them to deny it. A moment passed before he asked, “...Wait, really?”

They nodded, and Rochelle told him, “More or less, I guess.”

He laughed a little, “See, I thought it was fucked up that you guys were stuck traveling a thousand miles with a pathological liar, but now I see it was fucked up that you people cut folks apart with chainsaws. Get the _fuck_ away from me.”

Ellis looked at them both and shrugged, and the three of them walked away. When they were out of earshot Rochelle gave the mechanic a begrudging grumble, “Thanks, Ellis.”

“What'd _I_ do?” he quietly whined, “Ain't my fault yer the coolest girl I ever met.”

She wanted to thank him, but sighed to herself instead.

6:00 came, and Nick was busy sitting on a toilet just to be by himself for a bit. When he got to the cafeteria most of the other denizens were seated next and around the place where the four of them usually sat-- all harassing Ellis and him pouring himself out in response. They looked at Nick as he entered, and Ellis especially watched him sit down on the other side of the cafeteria by himself.

As soon as his butt hit the chair there was a chorus from the other side as they all shouted “Niiiiiiiick!” and he looked over in surprised confusion. 

“C'mon, Nick!” one called, then came a “What are you doing over there by yourself?”

He ignored them and started eating. Ellis continued to watch him with a kind of melancholy but hopeful expression as Coach shouted, “Get over here!”

“Make me,” Nick replied as he continued to eat the food in front of him.

The blonde woman (having thanked Ellis and apologized to him earlier), sitting in Nick's usual seat turned back to Ellis and continued their conversation, asking, “What happened to him? He can't still be _alive_.”

“Don't worry-- Keith is immortal, but ah can't say he was okay, because before the doctors started re-hydratin' him again Keith looked like a man made of Slim Jims,” Ellis laughed to himself and others laughed, too. He sighed, “He's a great guy, really, I mean-- it goes to show how serious he was about gettin' locked out at 4AM, not even drinkin' water. Y'know, usually when people go on hunger strikes that's the only thing they _do_ eat.”

“Well you don't eat water,” the same woman told him, “And I still think your friend is crazy. Stupid, a little brave, but clinically insane.”

“Now, we're just gonna hafta agree to disagree, I think,” he politely replied.

The oldest of the three women turned to the blonde, “I think Keith sounds like he'd be fun to be around, you know? Always doing something exciting,” and Ellis agreed.

“That's an amateur EMT's idea of exciting,” Coach muttered.

Nick continued to listen intently as he ate, like he was waiting for something. Aside from the trio of ladies there were two other people at the table with Ellis, Rochelle and Coach that he hadn't spoken to before.

The lady with the broken arm decided to talk for the first time at that table that day, asking, “How did you make it through?”

“We had each other,” Rochelle told her a little softly, “Honestly, there's no way any of us would've made it on our own.”

“Yeah, we were a team,” Coach added, and the oldest lady once again said her praise, “That's nice. N-Not nice that such a terrible thing brought you all together, but this must have been God's way of making you all... a part of each other's lives.”

Ellis smiled, and looked at Nick from the corner of his eye as he thumbed the ring on his finger. He watched Nick bring a cup of coffee to his mouth and scrunch up his brows at the taste before turning back, noticing most of the table was watching him.

“H-Hm?” he squeaked, looking at their sympathetic expressions.

The oldest lady comfortingly reached her hand forward, “I'm sure she's watching over you, you know.”

Ellis gave a look of confusion, trying to think of a dead woman he might've known. He stared blankly. “... _Who?_ ”

“Your fiancee, dummy,” the blonde told him, “You must've really loved her if you're still wearing that ring.”

Ellis was still perplexed, staring at them, before Rochelle coughed a little, pointing at his hand, “Uhm, Ellis.”

He looked at his hand and then awkwardly laughed, “Oh! That's right. Right... My dead fiancee,” he sighed.

“Do you miss her?” the youngest asked. Ellis nodded and flatly told her, “Miss her every day.”

The blonde rest her chin in her hand and asked, “If you don't mind... What was she like? I wanna know if I have a chance,” she laughed. 

“She was... Well... _rrrreallyyyyy_...” Ellis let his gaze slide away as he tried to make something up.

“How long did you know her?”

“Uh... Since--...”

“Since you were kids?”

“...Yeah.”

“Did you go to school together?”

“Yeah.”

“I bet she was really nice.”

“Yeap.”

“Was she your first love?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Did you go to prom together?”

“Yeap.”

As they continued Nick gently put the fork in his hand on the tray by his plate and sat back, staring ahead and crossing his arms. 

They continued to ask the younger man questions, and Nick started to imagine, against his better judgment, Ellis holding hands with some lovely young woman as they talked about going steady or whatever, and how she felt so lucky to be one of some gaggle of Savannite girls who thought they were on his level. “Oh Ellis, I must be the luckiest girl in Georgia!” she squealed. “Now why you sayin' that?” dream-Ellis asked. “Because you picked _me_ even though so many other girls wanna kiss your perfect lips and stare at your eyelashes so long it borders on obsessiveness!” “Oh, all _them_ girls! We-he-hell, don't worry, darlin', yer the only one for me, Nick's dumb-ass imaginary dream girl!” he replied, blushing bashfully. She was already fantasizing about being married to him in her mother's dress or something insipid like that, and one night at a house party they sat on a bed in the dark, alone together, gazing into each other's eyes before they kissed while a sentimental country song played in the background and Nick felt his front teeth clench together and his lip twitch. The first time Ellis and that stupid fantasy girl had sex probably didn't involve her bullying and trying to manipulate him and probably didn't end in a fist-fight where she socked Ellis so hard in the eye he had a purple bruise for days. And maybe that wasn't an inevitable future happening, either, because stupid fantasy girl was one of the like, two women on the planet who wasn't a surprise psychopath. Nick was tired of his own predictability.

Maybe stupid fantasy girl had a family who would love Ellis and help him. Maybe she could offer him stability and familiarity. She definitely didn't have a criminal record. He assumed.

He'd made himself depressed, and was about to stand up and leave when that long-haired, glasses-wearing guy sat down in front of him at the table and gave him a look. Nick instinctively frowned.

“Hello,” the guy quietly said, and Nick was suddenly overcome with the smell of body odor-- he tried his hardest to control his nauseated squint as he answered, “What.”

“You, uh...” the man's eyes darted to the side behind his glasses, “You know any way I can get somethin'? Y'know, like, some weed?”

Nick gave him an intense glare of disbelief, shoulders dropping, as the blonde lady at the other table continued to talk to Ellis, telling him, “You guys sound like you were a real fairy-tale couple. Makes me jealous.”

“Naw, it wasn't anythin' like that...” Ellis tried to seem bashful and just ended up turning to Coach and Rochelle with a look that said _help_. He heard Nick give a loud groan of frustration and shout, “Don't talk to me ever again!” as the gambler got up and left the cafeteria, leaving the be-spectacled man at his table to watch in bewilderment.

“I guess now's the time for me to tell you not to give up on your dreams,” the blonde lady said, drawing Ellis' surprised stare back, “And you're young, you got a whole lot of people to meet and fall in love with, too.”

The youngest lady turned to her, “Don't be so insensitive.”

At the end of the day Ellis dragged himself up the stairs towards the bedrooms, exhausted, and when he parsed the people standing around, he turned to walk into room D and finally found Nick, lying in bed with his eyes closed. Ellis wondered if he was asleep, but he also looked distinctly irritated as he lay there silently.

“Hey, Nick...”

“No,” the gambler answered. He didn't sound as angry as Ellis expected him to. Still, his apology for making him uncomfortable today would wait.

Ellis tiredly sighed and dragged himself up the painfully hard rungs of the impractical ladder at the end of the bed and flopped onto the mattress, causing Nick's body to jostle slightly. His brows furrowed harder.  
When Coach finally came in Nick rolled over and tried to ignore the sounds he made, his asking Ellis if he was asleep, getting dressed and getting into bed. When he told them “Good night,” Nick wanted to answer with “Shut up,” but said nothing because he knew he'd regret it.

Sleep came much faster that night. In the old, unfamiliar ache of a deep, bad dream Nick felt himself on the floor of a safe room as he shoveled painkillers into his mouth and forced them down dry. His hands were covered in blood, and his white suit, too, was drenched in a bath of rotten colors-- he put his hands to the ground and it took all his strength to push himself up to kneel.

He had a deep suspicion that he'd been abandoned, and although he expected it, the expectation did not make the pain searing through his body any easier like it had promised him-- it was familiar, it was a cage, and it was unbearable. He kept thinking over and over, _this again, this again, this again_.

He thought of going home, going from zero. But he wasn't sure where or who that was. Was there anywhere that felt like his “zero”, a “home” at all? His heart pounded. Everything was dark, intolerably dark, and he caught himself thinking about all the times he'd ever been deserted or escaped some fucked up situation and it all came flooding in at once.

“You've done this before,” he grunted to himself, trying to push himself onto his feet. It felt like his body was full of broken glass and like he was being pulled down to the floor by a million ghostly hands, and he chanted to himself, “You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. You've done this before,” as he gasped for air. He struggled to keep himself together, but he felt himself coming apart more quickly than he could provide himself platitudes-- he coughed, and his coughs turned into awful sobs.

Taking three determined steps, Nick made it to the exit door, pulled up and threw the bar aside with a loud _clang!_ and reached for the door-- he stared at his hands for a moment, turning them, as he realized his fingers were bare of any rings.   
He pushed his arm against the wood and shoved with all his strength-- the safe room door swung open and hit the outside wall, bouncing off it slightly. Nick stuck his head out and saw nothing, his grey eyes wide and face sown with wet blood. There was no light, no outlines of black trees against a starry sky. Just an absence of any sight or sound.

It occurred to him then that he couldn't start over again. To trust people and make a place familiar. There was just this world, all foreign nothingness and no-one to have any reason to be in his life, in this bottomless blackness. He didn't know what he did, but he was filled with regret. 

Suddenly he fell to his knees with a deep feeling of wanting to be with the other three survivors-- with them, near them, he wanted it so badly his heart felt like it was pounding out of his chest-- his body ran hot and he felt light-headed. Distantly, he thought about how terrible he must have looked; if they were going to come back for him, he needed to pull himself together, but the thought only made his eyes hot with tears. Of course they weren't coming back! Nothingness! No-one!

Nick woke up and swallowed dryly and panted and just felt his chest pounding hard. In the silence of the bedroom he felt like simply staring off and gasping for air, but the terrifying loneliness inside him urged him to move.

He rolled out of bed and climbed the shitty ladder to Ellis' bunk. He hoped that although Nick had been a touchy shit today that Ellis still remembered what he said about no-one being abandoned.

He carefully climbed over him and tried to fit in some way to his side as the gambler's heart continued to thud against his ribs. Carefully lifting Ellis' limp hand, he lay down next to him and tried to decide what to do with the hand in his hand before he just held it against his own chest-- the terrifying loneliness in him wasn't going anywhere, even with this, but there was some small comfort.

His breaths were still kind of quick, and he squeezed Ellis' hand as he gazed at him with a guilty expression. Reaching up, he carefully pet the younger man's hair and gave a shaky sigh.

The hand in his twitched slightly and Nick froze as Ellis slowly opened his tired eyes. He jumped at the sight of the man lying next to him before he huffed a relieved breath.

“...Sweet Jesus, Nick, you look just like you saw a ghost,” the mechanic croaked, and then realized-- “Wait... What're you doin' up here?”

“Just--” Nick sniffed and reached over Ellis, _swf, swff,_ pulling him against him and making him grunt.

“What happened?” The younger man's voice sounded almost sad.

Silence, as the arms around him continued to hold him tight. Ellis then heard the gambler try to be funny, awkwardly laughing, “Ellis, I think I might be a little jealous of your made-up, dead fiancee.”

An equally awkward laugh came from the mechanic. His voice was low, “Nick... You do know you made her up, right?”

Leaning back, Nick hesitated for a moment before he kissed Ellis, who gracefully kissed him in return. Ellis then watched the older man move down a little so he could push his miserable face against the mechanic's chest and just nuzzle him. He could barely make out Nick's muffled voice as he told him, “I'm sorry, Ellis... I'm... I'm sorry.”

“Wha?” Ellis squawked in disbelief, “I should be the one sayin' sorry, man, for embarrassing you, like... five times today. I know you don't like me huggin' and callin' you names in front of other people.” After some quiet, Ellis asked him, “You always been like that...? Hidin' and bein' ashamed?”

Nick stared off as he pressed his forehead against Ellis' chest.

“...Ellis, you're not into women, are you.”

“'Into women'?” Ellis balked a little, “I don't think I ever really was, man. We talked about this.”

“I am,” Nick told him. Ellis froze, not entirely sure of what that entailed. He listened as the gambler continued, “So I could be... I could pretend I didn't have anything to hide. Nobody needed to know that I...”

“Wha... Wh--” Ellis jerked his chin down as it dawned on him, “Holy shit, Nick, you're bi!”

“Shh-” the arm around his waist gently shook him, “Shh-shut up, shut up,” the gambler miserably whispered.

Ellis blossomed with awe as he ran his hands over Nick's head, held against his chest, “A-Ah guess that makes perfect sense,” he marveled, “But-- ah mean, you can't just ignore you likin' _guys,_ or how were you gonna... y'know...” a smile, “Fall in love with _me_ an' shiet?”

A hopeless sigh rattled from the man below him. Hands reached down and felt over Nick's bare shoulder and collar, and Ellis smiled that weird smirk as he looked down, his face close to Nick's.

“...What's a lady gonna do when you want somebody inside you so bad you'd walk right outta yer closet to little ol' me?” Ellis grinned, voice quiet, “You're into women, but... you sure do like takin' it.”

Nick broke out in a self-conscious sweat, “Th-Those things aren't... mutually exclusive,” he corrected him.

“Ah know,” the hand on his shoulder went _pat-pat,_ “And I know about strap-ons, don't worry.”

Ellis moved to sit up, and Nick watched for a moment, feeling like he screwed something up, before he followed suit, pulling himself up and feeling the bunk shake a little as he put his back to the wall with only their legs touching. Nick almost timidly looked up at Ellis as the mechanic wiped his nose, and decided to try to let him in a little.

“...I was a homophobic piece of shit when I was younger,” he told him. Ellis didn't look surprised. “I had to be. Sometimes there's only one path in front of you. Sometimes it's either die, or make yourself _want_ to die and hope it'll get better.”

“Makes sense,” Ellis nodded, crossing his arms.

An unusual show of sincerity came over Nick's face as his brows knit almost worriedly, “Being around you guys has really let me _feel_ some things... And how that feeling... feels.”

Ellis watched him for a second with a soft smile. “Reachin' out to me musta been real hard.”

“You have no idea,” Nick quietly told him.

After a moment of silence, Ellis decided to say, “Well... It's not like ah sprung from Savannah fully formed without any of that hate pressed upon me, but-- and this might surprise you-- I've never had a lot of friends,” he laughed, “And I just thought other guys were attracted to men, they just didn't wanna admit it.”

Nick's lips twist as he tried not to laugh.

“I thought I was just bein' selfish, though,” he continued, “Like I didn't _try_ hard enough to be straight. That one girl I went out with, it was her dream to find her man and have a family and live that picture-perfect life, and I figured, hey, I could do that. Makin' a dream come true? Easy,” Ellis shrugged, “Why wouldn't I?”

Nick's expression turned to a distressed grimace. “That's... concerningly like you.”

“You know it ain't good,” the mechanic's smile faded a little, “No part of her dream involved a gay guy who didn't know shit about himself pretendin' to be into her.”

“Now look at you,” Nick interjected, “Livin' that picture-perfect life in prison.”

“It ain't perfect, yet, Nick. We gotta get our union officiated,” Ellis reminded him. Nick nodded dismissively, not entirely interested in the 'unity' of marriage, but goals and all that. Gotta keep thinking of that house at the end of a long road.

Looking away for a moment (and thinking about his divorce again), Nick returned his gaze to Ellis and saw him staring at him with a smug smile.

“What,” Nick frowned.

“Jus' thinkin',” Ellis answered, taking a deep breath, “You probably been with a lotta ladies who wouldn't peg ya, 'cuz you seemed pretty pent up by the time we had our first kiss. Since then we've done a lot of love-makin', and it usually involved you gettin' penetrated by me.”

Nick sputtered slightly, “A-And?”

“And, if you was home-a-phobic, you musta hated that part of you, the part that likes it. But I'm with that part,” Ellis grinned, “Ah think it's hot as hell.”

“Don't even _attempt_ to turn me on,” Nick warned him with a stare.

“Sorry, it's just hard to do anythin' else seein' you in my bed wearin' nothing but mandated underwear. What do you want me to do?” Ellis yawned.

Nick sighed and moved to lie down again. On his back, he raised an arm and looked up at Ellis, “Here.”

Ellis gazed at him for a second before happily jamming himself into Nick's armpit and throwing an arm over him. He hugged Nick and the gambler closed his eyes, trepidly soaking in the affection before he rest a hand on the appendage over his chest. They shifted a little until they were comfortable and closed their eyes.

Nick gave a long exhale through his nose and smiled a little. “Yeah, this is the life,” he whispered.

Ellis smiled, too, and gave Nick a squeeze.

“...It's _warm,_ Nick.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It's quiet... Smells alright.”

“Mm.” Nick mumbled, “Electricity, running water.”

“Mm- _hmmm,_ ” Ellis nodded slightly, whispering, “We're almost livin' like human beings.”

_Almost,_ Nick thought.

Minutes passed as Ellis lay with his head on Nick's collar and felt and listened to him breathing. He'd thought the older man had fallen asleep before he heard him speak.

“...Ellis...” he began, “I really... really care about you, okay?”

Ellis' eyes blinked open, “Are you gonna tell me not to punch a guard?”

“Nn-- Well... just... I need you to take care of yourself,” Nick tried extra hard not to sound condescending, ending with a strangely high-pitched “Y'know?”

“I know, Nick,” Ellis replied, a little sullen, “I'm always thinkin' about it.”

Nick felt like he screwed something up again, and his lips pulled into a pensive line. Some moments of silence passed.

“...Thank you, for everything you're doing,” Nick quietly said.

Ellis made a perplexed expression, “What's 'everythin'?”

“Everything, everything you do for us.”

Ellis once again looked like his entire body, mind and spirit licked a lemon.

“Stop making that goddamn face,” Nick softly insisted, “It takes a little being observant, but you really push yourself. We don't take it for granted.”

“Please stop,” Ellis sighed.

Nick gathered some courage before he asked, “Can I have some kind of explanation? At all?”

A long exhale escaped the mechanic and he attempted to let go of Nick and lie on his other side when the older man's arm caught him, “Mm--” and pulled him back.

Ellis gave in and relaxed into position, and after some long thoughts he sighed again and spoke, “It ain't special. I'm just... tryin' to live without regrets, ah guess. Ah can't live my life knowin' I didn't do everythin' I could.”

“...But you don't want me to acknowledge it.”

Ellis tried to shrug, “It'd probably be best if nobody did. I can take the thank-yous, as long as I get to say yer welcome. It ain't about me.”

“You know that's kind of weird, right?” Nick quietly asked, “It's a little beyond the 'southern gentleman' thing, in my opinion,” and then, squinting, he thought out loud, “What... What was your childhood even like?” 

“Wuddn't weird or bad,” replied the mechanic with a tone like he didn't know why Nick was asking.

Nick thought for a moment and moved a little, idly petting Ellis' head with his thumb.

“...When this is over... you don't wanna live in Savannah again?” he asked. Nick felt Ellis tense up under his arm and knew he was splitting the rock, so to say.  
He looked down at him again, “Isn't that _Lodi_ supposed to be 'awesome'?” the gambler pressed, and he heard Ellis grumble against his collarbone, “Savannah ain't a _Low-die_.”

The gambler continued to lovingly pet his hair as he asked him, “Then why don't you wanna go back?”

A genuinely worried look came over the mechanic. The contact between him and Nick got a little uncomfortable as he formulated his words.

“Nick... I don't wanna tell you, kinda, because a'love you a lot and I don't want you to find out I ain't as kind-hearted as you think I am and start... hatin' me or something.”

The older man quickly tucked his chin, looking down at Ellis with furrowed brows.

“What? ...Is it really that bad? I can't imagine it being that bad.”

“You sure?” Ellis asked as he looked up at him, “'Cuz I was surprised you thought you had to apologize to me, today. I known people for years who woulda' cut me off for less than what I done.”

Without any further words, Nick took Ellis' arm up and turned on his side so he could pull him into a full-on hug, arms tight around his waist and his shoulders. The gambler firmly pressed his thin lips against Ellis' curly hair before he mashed his cheek against the younger man's temple.   
As he hugged him in return Ellis felt like his every insecurity melted into irrelevant memory-- Nick's warmth, the feeling of his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing, all familiar and comforting and protective. Everyone was okay. He closed his eyes and sighed.

“...You think I'd let you go that easily?” Nick asked, voice low, “You'll have to kill me.”

“Nick, I ain't gonna kill you,” Ellis whispered, “I can't live without you, man. You gotta live forever.”

The gambler let those words sink in, and sniffed. The image of a doorway into blind darkness. His chest ached, and he nodded before he kissed Ellis' forehead again and again.

Weeks ago, in a dark room, Ellis lay in a bed at night, wrapped in bloody bandages and all that could be heard was the sound of his pronounced breathing.  
Nick sat by his side with his head nearly bowed, and took a tired breath as he watched the younger man's eyes weakly open.

“...Still can't sleep?” Nick murmured.

A weary grin came to Ellis' face. “It hurts... a lot,” he quietly grunted.

“It's probably been an hour.”

“Oh, I think I--... feel a little better than before...” Raising his tired hand, he slowly placed it on Nick's, and after some hesitation the gambler put his other hand on Ellis'.

Nick stared off and tried to think. “We need something you can't get over the counter for this...”

“Naw, naw... it's alright. I'll be alright...”

Nick watched Ellis' moderately pained expression in the silence for a few moments before the mechanic spoke again.

“...But... y'know--... if somethin'... _untoward_ might happen to me...” he began as Nick stared, listening, “Ah just want y'all to know... I... I appreciate that y'all never ditched me when this all started... Y'know?”

Frowning, Nick immediately replied, “Don't be an idiot. What goddamn reason would we have to ditch you?”

Ellis seemed obviously surprised, “Well... 'Cuz I'm a liability, I guess.”

“You're not a liability,” Nick hissed as he leaned in, “Ellis, you're the goddamn glue that keeps us together.”

Ellis coughed and stared up at him with wide eyes. He weakly shook his head, frowning, “No I _ain't_ \-- the glue that keeps us together is us _carin'_ for each other.”

Nick quietly reminded him, “We didn't always care about each other. Some of us didn't even care about ourselves.”

Ellis could only squint at him. “Y'really sell yourself short, y'know.”

“Whatever,” Nick turned away, “If any one of us is a liability, it's _me_. You guys have had plenty of reasons to dump me in an alley somewhere.”

A low, tired voice sounded from a few feet away in the darkness, “ _What?_ Now-- y'all's weak self-esteem aside, I was under the impression that if any of us was gonna be left behind, it'd be the man with the chronic sports injury,” then some contemplative quiet, “Although the way I imagined it was... I was doin' somethin' heroic, like... holding a door closed with my back and shoutin' at y'all to run and save yourselves. Then y'all could make a movie about me.”

“Coach,” Nick lazily turned his head, “You're the brains of this thing. Therefore, that's an uncharacteristically stupid thing to say. Well-- you're the brawn, too, so maybe it's not that surprising.”

“...Shut up, Nick.”

There was a confused groan from his side, and Nick looked down at Ellis as the injured guy glanced around, “Y'all serious? I ain't even got any-- gh... applicable skills--”

“Being a mechanic is a very applicable skill,” Nick interrupted, “Being a shitty con-man, though? I might as well have two live chickens for hands.”

“At least y'can walk for a half-hour without needin' to take a break,” Coach quipped, and then another tired voice came from some feet away, “The more you guys talk, the more I'm thinking of kicking _all_ of you out of the group.”

“Sorry, Ro.”  
“Sorry.”  
“Sorry, Rochelle.”

“Good night!” she called, and then the rest just lay in the darkness, in light confusion, thinking to themselves.  
  
  



End file.
